Wicked Local Newton’s Trevor Jones details the decision by state environmental police to use lethal force shoot and kill that bear in Newton on Sunday…
Bears are capable of running up to 35 mph, and the proximity of the 130-pound animal to neighborhoods and traffic led the officers to conclude lethal force was necessary.
“If he had come down, he could have been down on the Mass Pike or on the rail lines or into the neighborhoods within seconds,” said Baker. “There could have been a human interaction that we try and avoid.”
Thank you, Greg. I have gotten to know some of the folks who have to deal with conflicts between wildlife and human beings in suburban areas because of the increasing presence of coyotes in West Newton. They are good people who care deeply about protecting wildlife. This neighborhood is densely populated with two-family homes on small lots, hard up against the railroad line and the MassPike. The folks who work for the Fisheries and Wildlife Division and the Environmental Police love these wild animals and I am sure this was a heart-wrenching decision to take down this bear. Kudos to Trevor Jones and the TAB for a stirring article.
Look, anyone that is an environmental officer obviously loves wildlife and killing the bear had to be a difficult decision. It’s a truly sad event and instead of becoming knee-jerk reactionaries, let’s give some credit to the people that have to make this truly difficult decision. The choice was the right one based upon the info we have and based upon the circumstances. It’s tough, though.
Let me see if I’ve got this right… The Environmental Police were going to tranquilize the bear, but their tranquilizer gun didn’t work. So they shot and killed the bear instead. That about sums it up, right? Pathetic!
@Mike: What would you have done?
Excellent report, he asked all the right questions. Last weekend must have been very busy for the Environmental Police with lots of boaters out on the waters. He also makes a point of slim-staffing. That net idea though — of catching the fall of a 130 lb (drugged) animal from 40 feet up and in an unknown direction, from a tree — how could that possibly work????
It is shocking to see this but we do encourage bear hunts in certain areas to cull an unthreatened species. According to MA Fish & Wildlife, bears in MA have increased in population from a few 100 to a few thousand in the last few decades: http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/recreation/hunting/bear/bear_hunting_home.htm
I would assume a tranquilizer gun is an essential piece of equipment for the Environmental Police, who are charged in part with protecting wildlife, and should anticipate these types of situations. So I would have made damn sure the tranquilizer gun was in proper working order before hand.
@Mike: And what if (as was the case here) the equipment did not function. It’s easy to be a Monday morning QB and say they should have had working equipment. But they didn’t. So, knowing this, what would you do if you were the person in charge at the scene that morning?
And please don’t simply say, “go get the equipment.” It’s not like you can go buy this at Target. (Which would have been closed at that hour anyway).
The gun is an airgun w a Co2 cartridge. The issue may have been w the cartridge or the dart. I would expect them to have multiple cartridges but how many darts would they have?
This was like the police showing up to a bank robbery with one gun,…..I would think be prepared means having more than one piece of equipment.
Also a few years back when our neighborhood had a sick coyote, we were told to live with it……why do the rules change suddenly? The coyote was protected. Isn’t the bear protected? I don’t like when the standards are changed due to convenience.
Be prepared is a good rule of thumb
@Newton mom: Maybe you would care to answer the same question that I asked Mike. If you were in charge on the ground Sunday morning what would you have done?
Well, I am the type of person to over pack….so normally my supplies are high. I would have had another tranquilizer gun in my trunk…..but I realize most people don’t over pack like me. I realize that there were six others on staff across the state …how long would have it taken to get another supply? I just want to know why a sick coyote is something one neighborhood has to live with ….plus in the past when I call newton animal control I usually get the try to live with it line.
@Greg– Do you think it’s okay that the Environmental Police set out to perform their duties without making sure the equipment they’re likely to use is in proper working order? I hardly think I’m being a “Monday morning QB.” It seems like a no-brainer to me. They had a piece of equipment, essential to the performance of their duties, and it was not in proper working order. That’s indicative of a lack of preparation, proper training, and professionalism.
@Mike: I’m not saying it’s OK that they didn’t have functioning equipment but I’m inclined to believe that the responsibility for that lies beyond the individuals at the scene that morning, who’ve been the focus of much of the criticism. This is from today’s Globe…
So, I’m going to repeat my question to you Mike. Given the circumstances, what would you have done if you were the person in charge at the scene early Sunday morning? And please don’t deflect the question with more outrage about the equipment. Given the lack of proper equipment, what specifically would you have done?
Mike Striar – maybe, maybe not. We all know, things do go wrong – i.e your car starts every morning until it doesn’t. For all we know the gun could have been tested that morning.
I’d just give them all the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think anyone had a good morning … especially the bear.
Its strikes me as a no-win situation . You shoot him with a tranquilizer, he falls from the tree and dies, you lose. You shoot to kill, you lose. You wait for him to come down to tranquilize him and he escapes, you lose. I think it was just a crew doing their job, making the judgements they’re paid to make with the information they have. Things don’t always play out like we wish they might have but that doesn’t necessarily mean someone screwed up.
@Greg– No “deflection” on my part. My expectation is that all public safety departments maintain their essential equipment in proper working order. So when you ask me–“Given the lack of proper equipment, what specifically would you have done?”–my answer is that I would not have been in that position in the first place.
@Mike: That’s deflecting.
If the best case scenario is to move a bear into someone else’s town, it’s only our best case.
They told us way back when the referendum on trapping was balloted that there events would happen.
@Jerry– If the gun was “tested that morning,” I’ll apologize and retract my comments. Wanna bet a nickel that it wasn’t?
Okay, Greg. I’ll play along. I would have kept a close watch on the bear in the tree, and called for another tranquilizer gun. If the bear came down from the tree while waiting for the back-up tranquilizer gun, I would have shot it. In fact, had the bear not run up the tree in the first place, I would have shot it. Under any circumstance where the bear posed an imminent threat to public safety, I would have shot it….
Now, let’s play by the same rules. No deflecting. If the animal in question was a coyote rather than a bear, and it was tracked by police following the same route [except tree climbing] on the same timeline as the bear, what would you have done?
@Mike: Rattle some pots and pans or made some other noise. Coyotes are afraid of people and would have headed in another direction. And since coyotes can’t jump/climb fences, I doubt it could have gotten onto the Pike.
Mike Striar — You have an assumption that there was no opportunity cost of waiting; the officers might have saved a human while the clock is turning. (There’s a value assumption in what they do.) You’re asking that localized individuals stay put and wait for others in another section of the state — two regional opportunities to save someone or prevent accidents, particularly on the waters. The part about coyotes being evil and bears being special is also confusing. It feels like your not bending given the additional facts (that the bear falling on the Pike wasn’t the concern, that him running on the pike was, etc.)
Mike Striar – I already threw in my two cents. I don’t think I could afford another nickel.
@Greg– I think your logic is a bit flawed. Coyotes can get onto the Pike without scaling a fence, same as you do with your car. I’m fairly sure it happens all the time. I’m even more certain that a bear could climb the fence at any point along the entire Pike, not just in Newton. But we don’t go shooting all the animals that live near the Pike, because they may find their way onto the highway. They’re shot if they pose an imminent threat to public safety. Once treed, the bear posed no such threat. As far as the DEAP suggesting the bear might have fallen from the tree onto the highway, the State Police had already closed that road when the bear was shot. And you can see from the video that after it was shot, it didn’t actually fall onto the highway. I do get your point though. You don’t view coyotes as posing the same threat level as bears. On that point, we’ll have to disagree. In either case I don’t believe any animal should be shot unless there is an immediate threat to the public. I don’t believe there was any threat to the public while the bear remained in the tree.
I wouldn’t second guess the cops.
I’d rather we leave ALL wildlife alone (including coyotes, bears and wild turkeys) and learn to live with them, but if the Public Safety officers determine there is a threat, they need to act. How it all went down after that is almost beside the point. It’s only one action and it didn’t go as well as planned- we can all be smarter and perform perfectly after someone else has a small screw up. Like I said, I wouldn’t jump all over them for this blip.
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By the way, the idea of hunting coyotes is laughable. Unless they are cornered, a cop with a gun will get a chance to pop one so infrequently that it’s not a reasonable strategy. We need to live with the environment we have.
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Open question (talk amongst yourselves): If this bear was in Cold Springs park or Hemlock Gorge do you think the Environmental Police would have different tactics?
If it wasn’t an endangered species I have no problem with it… that said I am inclined to believe that police are generally trigger happy and were glad to have an excuse to shoot something.
Those of you crying over a dead bear (especially if it’s not protected) need to get over yourselves. Where do you think your food comes from? The bear lived a better life than any of your meals for just about your entire life has. Facing reality sucks, huh? Your hamburger probably never saw the light of day and was unable to support it’s own weight. Don’t get me wrong, I eat plenty of tasty animals… but I’m not going to cry about a dead bear.
WRT to “living with wild life” and not killing it, too late. We have irreparably changed the habitats and life strategies of pretty much every species with “live with.” Overpopulation occurs in urban areas due to us moving in on habitats and you have a whole slew of problems which come with it. Hunting is often necessary, as well as other forms of pest control for the welfare of the human and animal populations.
It is concerning that the wildlife police can’t properly maintain or use their equipment. At least the police officers guns worked. I wonder if they used an evil assault rifle or high capacity magazine that none of us should be permitted to own… for the children.
Mike
Mike (not Striar) raises a good point about human encroachment into a wildlife habitat that is rapidly disappearing.
In Weston, Wayland and some of the tonier towns nearby, there is an ongoing debate over whether to hunt deer which carry the tick that causes Lyme Disease. A colleague of mine is a bow hunter who has many offers from private citizens to hire him to kill deer where Lyme Disease has become a serious problem affecting many families, including both adults and children. The tension between those who want to protect the deer and those who want to protect themselves from Lyme Disease has boiled over in both public and nonpublic discussions.
I have been surprised by the outpouring of sympathy for this bear, especially because last year when coyotes were killing family pets I heard from many residents who wanted the coyotes to be exterminated because of the perceived threat to themselves, their families and their pets. In truth, the exploding deer population probably poses a more serious health risk. I can’t help but wonder whether people are more sympathetic towards deer and bears than coyotes because of the “cute” factor. Not to be flip, but Bambi and Smokey the Bear are far more appealing to a lot of people than Wile E. Coyote.
I don’t have all the answers and don’t pretend to. But this is becoming an increasing problem and we need to have a thoughtful conversation about how to manage wildlife in urban/suburban areas, because these conflict between people and wildlife are only going to become more frequent.
@Mike (not Striar) – As someone who previously expressed sadness because the bear was shot, I can “cry over a dead bear” without needing to “get over” myself because I can experience both sadness with the outcome while understanding the reasoning for the decision to destroy the animal. Having attended the community meeting concerning coyotes, my impression of the people who work with wildlife, especially the environmental police, was that they work hard to balance protection of animals with protection of the public. I don’t think it is fair to characterize them as a bunch of trigger happy yahoos.
As for equipment failure, I am willing to give the officers the benefit of the doubt that they checked the equipment. These officers do not deserve to shoulder the blame for equipment and personnel shortfalls after years of budgetary distress.
A final point: when I attended the public meeting concerning coyotes, I found the public attitude towards wildlife chilling. Many people in attendance were there to convey one message: kill the animals. One elderly woman sitting behind me loudly announced that we should just “poison them”. Another woman announced that she didn’t move to Newton to “deal with this [animals]”. These comments were representative of the tone and demeanor of the crowd. I can’t help but wonder whether the flavor of this meeting was in the minds of the environmental police as they made their choice.
Ted – not sure how much is the “cute” factor (though that certainly plays a role) and how much is the frequency and obviousness of the nuisance. A bear in Newton is currently a novelty, while coyote have become common. Also, deer and black bears are not predators of small pets, which coyote’s are.
@mgwa, point well taken. But as between the three, the deer (and deer tick) population probably presents the greatest health and safety issue for people living in close proximity.
Ted Hess Mahan – BTW some recent research indicates that reducing local deer population may make no improvement in the spread of tick borne human illness (Lyme) and may in fact make it worse.
The “cute factor” played no part in my thought process. Bears [and coyotes] are dangerous animals, and I have no issue with shooting them when they threaten humans or pets. As a species though we are distinct for our humanity, and that attribute is defined in part by how we interact with animals. To kill a wild animal in defense of one’s self, a loved one, or beloved pet is well within the boundaries of my personal moral compass. But to shoot a wild animal that is in no position to harm anyone, like the bear who was frightened and ran up the tree, is dehumanizing. To shoot it because of equipment failure when it could have been saved, should be something that’s unacceptable to everyone for a number of different reasons.
@Jerry, oh great.
@Mike Striar, I believe you. But I was at the same meeting as Lisap, and there was a small but vocal segment who wanted to hunt down every coyote in Newton and kill it. This time around, I am not hearing that at all, possibly because no pets were harmed and the bear was killed. I have talked to friends in areas with a lot of deer who have or know someone with Lyme Disease, and they are almost evenly split between not wanting any deer harmed and advocating for a local deer hunting season to get their numbers under control. In fact, Weston just voted down a local deer hunting ban.
I don’t blame people for being afraid of coyotes. They are extremely dangerous. But the time to have dealt with their population growth and expansion to the region was 10-15 years ago when something could have effectively been done about it. Unfortunately the “wildlife experts” gave us the bad advice, [rattle pots & pans] that led to entrenched suburban coyote populations. Now, there are too many to shoot, and it would be inhumane to start a wholesale slaughter. On a brighter note [sarcastically], we don’t have much of a deer problem in Newton, because the coyotes have eaten most of them. But I do have to chuckle [albeit somewhat sadly] at the Keystone Cops antics of the DEAP, who now come into town and shoot the first bear they see, because of equipment failure. Maybe they should have tried rattling pots & pans.
OK, now bring on the moose.
“I’m scared of spiders, coach.”
@Jerry, I shot a moose once.
@Jerry– We had a moose in Newton a few years back. I saw it walk up my street and cut through my neighbor’s yard. It made the TV news. Not sure how that situation ultimately turned out. Hmmmm, not really sure I want to know.
@Ted – I hate when that happens
Jerry Reilly — Got any updates on the damned beaver? http://village14.com/netwon-ma/2013/05/busy-as-a-beaver/#axzz2VN6UH7wP
Hoss – not a dam thing
@Ted – A Moose once bit my sister (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SII-jhEd-a0)
Those responsible have been sacked.
Miraculously Ted and I agree on something!!
I live less than two hours from Newton currently and we have bear, deer, coyote, bobcats, porcupines, etc romp through our yard. Crazy huh.
We don’t leave our dog outside unattended and we carry guns when hiking/camping… and the world continues to turn.
Even having grown up in Newton I don’t understand why so many people opt to feel so helpless. It must be tough being in fear of coyotes or a small black bear, to the point where people show up at town meetings apparently demanding an eradication of wildlife.
If you want something to laugh about google “Weston deer friends”
Mike
@Mike (Not Striar), liberal means open minded, not empty headed.
Open mindedish… standing by a label strongly contradicts true open mindedness.
Mike
Can we open up Newton to hunting, I’d like to bag a bear myself. Hope the officer got to keep his trophy.