Dry summer means more random bear encounters

OLD FORGE -- With their normal summer diet of greens and berries shriveled by summer heat or drought in many spots, hungry bears are rummaging through garbage, ripping through screens and crawling into cars in search of sustenance.

In the Adirondack Mountain village of Old Forge, a black bear clawed through the wall of a candy store on Main Street last week; another one locked itself in a minivan and shredded the interior in a frantic struggle to escape, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

"We've been here 17 years and never had a problem with bears," said Roslyn Starer, who runs the Candy Cottage in Old Forge with her son, Larry. "But it's been so dry the normal foods in the woods just aren't growing. So they're coming into town."

Starer came to the shop one morning to find a bear had ripped a big hole in the wall. "If it had gone much further it would have gotten into the shop, and the damage would have been devastating," she said.

While property has been damaged by foraging bears, no human injuries have been reported in New York this year.

In the Catskills last month, there were three times as many serious bear issues, including home and vehicle break-ins, as there were in the same period last year, Jeremy Hurst, a big-game biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said.

"Typically, complaints of bear damage peak in late spring, but this year, the frequency of bear complaints picked up strongly with the drought in July," he said.

The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University reported Tuesday that so far, 2012 has been the hottest year on record for the 12-state region.

While conditions in the Northeast weren't as dry as some parts of the country, there has been moderate drought in parts of upstate New York.

This summer's bear troubles aren't isolated to New York. In eastern Kentucky, the U.S. Forest Service closed two campgrounds for a weekend at the end of July because of bears raiding picnic baskets and coolers. Biologists blamed the drought-related berry shortage.

In Colorado, where drought has dried up the chokecherries and serviceberries bears rely on, a bear and three cubs broke into more than a dozen cars in Aspen in June looking for food.

A surveillance camera in a candy store in Estes Park, Colo., showed a bear making seven trips inside for candy in 15 minutes. A bear that broke into occupied homes there last month was put down because it posed a danger to people, one official said, noting the drought has made the intelligent animals even more resourceful in finding food.

Weather-related bear problems are nothing new, as natural food supplies vary from year to year depending on rainfall and other factors. But this summer has been a particularly busy one, wildlife biologists in New York say.

"In multiple communities, bears have gotten into people's homes, in some cases even when people were at home," Hurst said. "Half a dozen to a dozen bears have been euthanized."