Mating Time Brings More Encounters


Looking for
love in all the wrong places.


That sad signature song line from the movie "Urban Cowboy" could
have been sung yesterday for three country bruins. In the span
of just a few hours, bears on the prowl for mates kept wildlife
officials hopping in northwest New Jersey:
# In Vernon, a female bear was shot and killed by authorities
after it tried to break into a garage and a porch.
# In neighboring West Milford, a male and female bear were
caught in a back yard -- the female in a trap -- tranquilized, then
conditioned to avoid humans and released.
"It is the time of year .

.. it's mating season," said Elaine
Makatura, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Fish and
Wildlife. "It was a female bear in the trap in heat, and the
agitated bear on the outside was a male trying to get to the
female.

"
The two were captured on the same property where another bear
was shot by a homeowner on June 5. In the aftermath of that
incident, a trap was put on property of Patrick and Kristine Flynn
after Patrick Flynn shot a bear that had ventured onto the family's
porch.
Wildlife officials tracked down the injured bear the next
morning and killed it. Last Thursday, they charged Flynn with
unlawfully injuring a bear, which carries a fine of $100 to $300,
and confiscated his 12-gauge shotgun.


Yesterday, Kristine Flynn told police and state wildlife
authorities that she spotted five bears around her property,
including the two that were trapped and tranquilized.
"There are more bears in my neighborhood than ever," she said.
"I told them (state wildlife authorities), 'I'm happy you're here
right now. I know you guys think I'm a lunatic.

'"
The first bear trapped on the Flynns' property was a 219-pound
sow. She attracted a 560-pound male, which was pacing outside the
trap, agitated he couldn't get at her, Makatura said.
The female bear in the Barry Lakes section of Vernon was killed
after "there was a report of a bear trying to break into a garage
and get into a porch across the street in a separate dwelling,"
Makatura said.
Authorities set a trap and caught a cub.

The nearby sow was
determined to be the problem bear, and she was shot and killed by
wildlife authorities. The cub was released.
Yesterday's incidents were the latest in a growing list of bear
encounters in northwest New Jersey. The state's bear population --
estimated at 1,350 to 3,300 -- is growing, and the number of bear
sightings and reports of aggressive behavior are increasing.


Last Wednesday, a 200-pound female bear crashed through the
screen door of a Vernon
home and ransacked the
kitchen while a woman and her
two young children retreated to a
bedroom. The woman called police
and the bear was shot and killed as it tried to get out of the
house through an open window.
On May 20, Sparta police tracked and killed a 150-pound female
black bear after it swiped at a 2-year-old boy sitting on his front
step. Three days later, a West Milford man was mauled by a bear as
he tried to break up a fight between the bear and his dog.

Wildlife
officials later said the bear was attracted to the fenced yard by
improperly stored garbage.
In the June 5 incident at Flynn home, two bears were attracted
to the area by the smell of cooking pork chops, and one, a male,
came up onto the family's porch.
Flynn told police he shot the bear in self-defense from a
distance of 10 to 15 yards. However, a necropsy determined the
large male bruin was shot in the rear from a distance of 15 yards,
or 45 feet, meaning it was "retreating" from the porch, authorities
said.


Kristine Flynn said yesterday that her husband plans to fight
the summons at a municipal court hearing next month because the
state exaggerated the distance. Fifteen yards would not be possible
in her yard because the bear would have been over a cliff, she
said.
"He's not pleading guilty to something he absolutely did not
do," she said. "If the summons said 15 feet, he would say, 'Fine,'
and plead guilty.

If they brought it down to the correct footage,
he wouldn't argue it."
By Jim Lockwood
Star-Ledger - 6/18/2003
Topic: Black Bear

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