Town Supervisor Offers Safety Tips Amid Recent Bear Sightings

NORTH SALEM, NY — Living with bears is one of the joys and burdens of living in northern Westchester. In the face of a rash of sightings, North Salem Town Supervisor Warren Lucas is reminding residents about both.

"We have had a number of bear sightings, most recently in the Yerkes Road area," Lucas wrote. "One bear can cover then entire Town looking for food. The bear is making a beeline to garbage cans left outdoors and especially bird feeders."

The supervisor said that there are a few common sense steps that homeowners can take to keep both bears and people safe. Chief among those actions is removing easy food sources from properties.

"Bears smell is about 2,000 times better than ours so they can smell bird food a mile away," Lucas said.

He added that overreacting to an inadvertent bear encounter can be counterproductive.

"DO NOT RUN AWAY if you see the bear, Lucas said. "Calmly retreat and call 911 if there is any danger."

The town supervisor also took time to remind his constituents that sharing a hometown with nature's majestic beast offers incredible opportunities.

"If you are interested, you can become a 'citizen scientist' for black bear research and management," Lucas said. "iSeeMammals is a new citizen science project of the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Cornell University and DEC."

The group taps laymen to collect data to help researchers and DEC biologists study the distribution and size of the black bear population in New York. iSeeMammals was conceived to help researchers collect data over more areas than they normally could cover in the field.

Participation is open to all.

iSeeMammals collects information about where and when citizen scientists identify bears or bear signs (scat, tracks, hair, markings) while on hikes or on their personal trail cameras. An app for data collection and submission is available for free download in Apple and Android stores.

More information about the program can be found here.

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), black bears are "transient occupants of Westchester County," and their movement tends to increase in June as breeding season begins and young bears look to find their own spaces.

While black bears are usually not dangerous to humans, they may become so if they become conditioned to human presence, or feel threatened.

If you see a bear, do not approach it. If possible, remain indoors, or in a safe location, until it leaves the vicinity. Children and pets should be closely monitored.

If a bear is damaging property or does not leave the area, but the situation is not an emergency, you can call the DEC regional wildlife office during business hours at 845-256-3098.

"A bear is nothing more than a large raccoon," Tom Koepf of the Department of Environmental Conservation told WABC-TV in 2015. "If there's food out they're going to eat it, they're just scavengers."

The best way to keep bears from entering a yard is to remove any sort of food, public safety officials say. Even bird feeders should be removed by April 1, according to NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) recommendations. Garbage cans should be emptied frequently and kept clean. Compost piles should be moved as far away from houses as possible. Grills with leftover grease can also attract bears, officials warned.

The NYS DEC advises that bears will only be encouraged to leave an area unless the bear creates a public disturbance, acts aggressively towards people or pets, attempts to enter homes or is injured and cannot move freely to escape.