State defends killing Old Forge black bears

The controversial euthanization of 2 black bear cubs leaves some questioning DEC’s wildlife management policies

By Gwendolyn Craig

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is defending its decision to euthanize two black bear cubs in Old Forge this summer, after some have questioned whether the killings followed its own policy and procedures.

State officials put down a mother bear and her two cubs in August after a crowd of people gathered in the hamlet to take photos of the bears. The DEC said the bears exhibited “aggressive behavior,” and therefore were killed.

The trio frequented Nick’s Lake Campground, where records show DEC environmental conservation officers have written several tickets for illegal wildlife feeding over the years. They had also been seen scouring trash cans and dumpsters in the hamlet.

The DEC estimated the cubs to be 7 months old.

Referencing the DEC’s black bear response manual, which categorizes bear behavior and the department’s subsequent management actions, Webb Tourism Director Mike Farmer said he believes the cubs should have been spared. 

Ted Smith, a retired bear biologist with the DEC and one of the authors of the bear response manual, said he thinks the DEC’s tolerance for handling bear complaints “has gone down.” Before Smith retired in 2002, he covered Region 6, which includes Old Forge. He and his colleagues in the region had never euthanized a bear.

The DEC has euthanized 76 bears in the Adirondack Park region, 194 total in all of New York, in the last eight years due to bear-human conflicts and humane dispatch for diseases and injury. The department noted the 2024 bear season is not yet over and the numbers could change. During the period, DEC field agents euthanized 54 black bears in Region 5 and 6, the area that encompasses the Adirondack Park, due to conflicts with humans, and 22 bears put down due to serious injuries or disease like mange. 

The DEC said during the Old Forge incident this summer, the mother bear was designated a “Class 1,” which in the manual calls for immediate euthanization. The DEC said “instructions were provided to local environmental conservation police officers and forest rangers by the regional wildlife manager that if the bear caused a safety risk over the weekend, she and her cubs were to be euthanized.”

“Cubs learn these unnatural feeding behaviors from the sow and will exhibit those same ‘taught’ behaviors as they mature,” the department said. “Relocation of the cubs at that age would likely have not been successful as it is questionable if they would have been able to survive on their own and, due to the behaviors they learned from the sow, they may have continued to seek out human-supplied food sources.”

Farmer wondered why the DEC didn’t attempt to save the cubs by sending them to a rehabilitation center. 

He also questioned the DEC’s estimate that the cubs were 7 months old. After talking to local business owners, Farmer said the mother and cubs had been living in some brush behind a Main Street business. The business owner had not seen the cubs until a few weeks before they were killed. The cubs were “tiny,” Farmer said.

“I understand their explanation,” he said. “Personally, I don’t agree with it. … They’re asserting this one solution on all three bears, the mother and the two cubs, and I think there ought to be a distinction.”

The town of Webb is currently looking at its own local ordinance with fines greater than the state provides for illegal wildlife feeding to curb the number of bear-human conflicts and euthanization. The DEC said its legal team is still reviewing whether the town can create its own law.

Smith declined to comment on the latest Old Forge bear incident and whether he thought the DEC’s actions were warranted.

Though there are rehabilitators in New York, Smith said it’s a complicated process to feed young cubs while making sure they are not acclimated to people. He also did not know what the rehabilitators’ availability and capacity might be.

He did recall a similar situation in Old Forge during his time as bear biologist where the local police department asked him to euthanize a bear that had shown aggressive behavior and had climbed a tree. A crowd of three dozen or so people had formed around it.

“I told them to disperse the crowd. The bear will come down on its own,” Smith said. They did. Smith said if the police had done it sooner, the bear would have never been aggressive.

He would have advised police to arrest anyone who didn’t disperse “for obstructing justice,” Smith said.

He also described other methods to deter bears. Houndsmen would train their dogs to run bears up a tree. The state, under the Gov. Mario Cuomo administration, passed a law making the practice illegal. Other times they’d shoot a bear with rubber bullets, another kind of negative conditioning to teach the bears to stay away from humans. 

There were times Smith and his colleagues captured problem bears in a metal culvert with a door, knocking them out with a medication and relocating them sometimes hundreds of miles away. A few found their way back, he said.

Another time, snowmobilers in St. Lawrence County found a sow and two cubs in a den. The DEC put a radio collar on the mother, so they could use her as a potential surrogate if there were ever orphaned cubs, Smith said.

The DEC denied any shift toward using euthanasia in recent years. The black bear population has increased, as have negative bear-human interactions, the department said. Generally bear-human conflicts appear to fluctuate “in response to rainfall levels affecting natural food availability,” the DEC said. 

The black bear response manual was updated in 2006 and again in 2011, adopting a classification system of conflicts and appropriate actions.

“As DEC’s wildlife experience with bears increased it was learned that moving bears largely just moved the conflict location and bears occasionally returned to the original sites,” the DEC said. “DEC also learned that aversive conditioning has only (a) temporary effect.”

Smith also wondered whether the department currently has enough resources to address bear complaints.

Matthew Krug, an environmental conservation officer and a union representative, said officer numbers are 25% below 1970 stuffing levels. The Old Forge area, he said, has several vacancies and is one of the hardest regions to fill positions. One officer in that region covers three counties, he said.

“You cannot address the bear feeding complaints (with one officer), which manifested into those bears being euthanized,” he told the Explorer in a previous interview.

The DEC said its fish and wildlife and law enforcement division works together to respond to nuisance bear issues. 

“Both divisions will allocate the necessary resources to address these complaints in a timely manner,” the DEC said. “DEC’s priority is to ensure the safety of the public as outlined in the black bear response manual.”

Top photo: A black bear. Photo by Jeff Nadler