"Officers kill bear near Pike in Newton; Explanation cites urban setting" by Joshua Miller | Globe Staff, June 02, 2013
Early Sunday, a spry young black bear made his way up a tree in Newton near the Massachusetts Turnpike. By about 7:30 a.m., the bear was dead on the railroad tracks below, shot by the Massachusetts Environmental Police with a Remington 870 shotgun.
A spokeswoman for the Environmental Police, Mary-Leah Assad, said in a statement that attempts to tranquilize the bear, which was in thick foliage high in the tree, were unsuccessful.
“Tranquilizing was too difficult to accomplish,” she said, noting that the tranquilizer guns have a limited range.
The decision to kill the bear, a male about a year old who weighed between 100 and 125 pounds, was “because of the proximity to the MBTA lines, Mass Pike, and the urban environment and population,” Assad said. The decision was made by the senior Environmental Police officer at the scene.
It was not clear why officials did not wait for the bear to come down to tranquilize it. Repeated requests to talk directly to officials were unsuccessful.
The case raised questions about why the animal was killed.
Not with me. Police and authorities have shown themselves to be a shoot-first, who cares if you kill it or them?
“I’m a little shocked by the news,” said Newton Alderwoman at Large Greer Tan Swiston, who lives close to the site where the bear was killed. “I’m not an animal expert, but I need to understand why they thought that’s what they needed to do.” She added, “I’m waiting to see what their explanation is.”
Ward 4 Alderman Jay Harney, of the Auburndale section of Newton, said the incident was “kind of sad.”
“I felt kind of bad that the bear was killed,’’ Harney said, “but I don’t know all the facts, so who knows.”
Assad said more information could be forthcoming on Monday.
It is not the first time a black bear has strayed into urban territory near Boston. Last June, a black bear meandered around Cape Cod, was caught, and was relocated to Central Massachusetts.
But then it made its way back east and was recaptured in Chestnut Hill. The bear was shot with a tranquilizer before falling from about 80 feet onto the ground, where no padding had been put down. It was relocated west of Boston.
Related: Globe Tracks Bear's Footsteps
Also see: More Than Massachusetts Can Bear
Is that the bear that was killed?
Some communities use different methods to subdue bears that wander into populated areas.
In Colorado last spring, authorities faced a similar situation with a bear that had climbed a tree on the University of Colorado campus. That bear was tranquilized and fell from the tree onto thick padding that had been placed on the ground.
Related: Unbearable Post
Todd Houston, who lives near the site of the shooting in Newton, saw the drama unfold.
“The bear was taking his time; I saw it climb up the tree about midway, then when the police showed up, it went up higher,” he said.
In other words, the POLICE EXACERBATED the SITUATION!
Lieutenant Eric Fricke, a spokesman for the Newton Fire Department, said the bear was in a tree when the Fire Department arrived at the scene. An officer with the Environmental Police climbed up a Fire Department ladder to get a better look at the animal.
After more information was obtained about the bear, Fricke said, the environmental officer “ended up going up the ladder and shooting the bear from the top of our ladder.”
At 7:27 a.m., State Police stopped traffic on the turnpike for about two minutes as the bear was “neutralized,” State Police said.
Nice euphemism for murder.
A photograph posted on Twitter and video posted on YouTube showed the dead bear bundled in greenish netting by the tracks.
Tom O’Shea, assistant director of wildlife for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, said “there is a broader trend” of black bears, in particular young males, moving east in Massachusetts.
“We’ve seen that the population has increased over time and with that, we have an expanding population moving eastward,” he said.
O’Shea explained that males stay with their mother and their siblings for about two years and then start to move on, typically at this time of year.
Brian Hourihan, a Weston police dispatcher, said there had been a number of bear sightings reported by Weston residents over the past week and a half, but in each instance, the bear was gone by the time police arrived.
Sergeant Tom Galvin of the Wayland Police Department, said his department had some reports of bear sightings about a week and a half ago.
“We did have a bear in town, but that was way back on May 21,” Galvin said. He said, generally speaking, there appeared to more bear sightings recently.
“It just seems like there are more coming this way,” he said.
Assad, the spokeswoman for the Environmental Police, said the carcass of the bear shot Sunday was given to a local sportsmen’s club, “so the meat could be salvaged.”
Road kill!
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"Police defend bear’s fatal shooting in Newton; Tranquilizer gun jammed when firing in Newton, authorities say" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, June 04, 2013
The fatal shooting of a black bear in Newton has inundated the state Environmental Police with a torrent of criticism that its officers did not do enough Sunday to transport the animal far from the MBTA tracks, Massachusetts Turnpike, and fitness club where the year-old male had wandered in a haphazard search for someplace to live.
“We’ve had terrible phone calls here,” Lieutenant Colonel Chris Baker of the Environmental Police said Monday.
But what critics call a heartless disregard for animals, Baker calls something else: equipment failure.
That's the lame-ass excuse they are going to use?
The bear was shot in a tree after a tranquilizer gun misfired and police determined they could not find a replacement in time to drug the 120-pound bear before Sunday morning traffic began increasing on the adjacent Massachusetts Turnpike, Baker said.
Oh, it was SHOT on a SUNDAY MORNING when there is NO RUSH HOUR, 'eh?
Although black bears are considered relatively docile, the prospect of a lost bear on the loose in a dense residential neighborhood with heavy traffic posed a public safety danger, Baker said. “The bear can run 30 miles per hour. He could have been out of the tree and onto the Pike in a matter of seconds,” Baker said. “We could have waited, I guess, but the problem is he could have gone in any direction, and we would have lost him in an urban situation.”
He climbed higher into the tree when you showed up, so.... ????????
The shooting, in which the bear fell about 30 feet onto the commuter-rail tracks, is the first for Environmental Police since a black bear was euthanized after a motor vehicle accident in Hancock in April 2012, Baker said.
“The officer with the tranquilizer gun was in position and tried to take a shot, but the gun misfired,” Baker said. “It’s one of those incidents. We can look at it now, but at the time a decision had to be made.”
Notice how quickly authorities resort to kill it?
The chemical-laden dart never left the barrel of the tranquilizer gun, Baker said. Repairs were not possible at the scene, he added, because “once the drug is loaded into the dart, it has to be very carefully removed in a very controlled environment.”
How much did the state pay for the gun?
Although Baker described the shooting as “unfortunate,” some animal-rights advocates questioned whether other options had been explored enough.
“How many safety risks do we have every day on the streets? I’m sure the public would have waited patiently if the Environmental Police had the patience to do so,” said Joanne Mainiero, founder of the Massachusetts Humane Society, which operates an animal shelter in Weymouth.
They couldn't have told people to shelter in place, 'eh?
“They rushed to judgment: Shoot it, kill it, it’s out of the way,” Mainiero said. “That poor bear paid the price.”
They FEEL THAT WAY about PEOPLE, too, judging by the number of people gunned down by police in Boston.
Rob Halpin, spokesman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell, said other options exist besides tranquilizing darts.
“The first decision should always be how might we ensnare, net, or tranquilize this animal so they can be safely transported to another location,” Halpin said. “Bears can be frightened with firecrackers or shot with rubber bullets. They also can be chased away with trained dogs.”
Halpin said he did not want to second-guess officers at the scene, but speculated that “if all of those people left, the bear likely would have left on its own.”
It's like I've been told since I was a little boy: if you don't bother the animals, they won't bother you!
Greer Tan Swiston, an alderwoman in Newton, said she lives three streets from where the bear was shot. “I’ve gotten a whole heck of a lot of calls about it,” she said. “We’re reacting because we don’t deal with bears on an everyday basis. But from everything I’ve seen, we’re part of something bigger that’s happening in Massachusetts.”
The bear population in Massachusetts has increased to about 4,000 animals, state officials said. And with bigger numbers comes more interaction with humans. When bears pose a public-safety threat and cannot be tranquilized or steered away from problems, Environmental Police are given the option to kill them.
“With a lot of animals this size, if they’re cornered or put in a position to defend themselves, certainly it’s a dangerous situation,” Baker said. “If he was outside the Route 128 belt, we would have had more options to hazing the bear back into a wooded environment.”
That protocol is in line with many other states. Wildlife officials in Maine, Connecticut, and Colorado all said Monday that black bears will be shot if they pose an imminent threat to the public....
Was the threat imminent? He was in a tree with authority surrounding him.
One longtime specialist on bears said the animal in Newton probably was roaming unfamiliar territory while trying to find new habitat.
House-hunting got him killed.
John Beecham of Boise, Idaho, who heads the human-bear conflict team for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, said the bear had a greater chance of inadvertently causing a traffic accident than finding its way safely to less populated habitat.
“They’re in totally unfamiliar territory and have no idea where they’re going to end up,” Beecham said. After the tranquilizer gun misfired, he added, Environmental Police appear to have acted appropriately.
“I would have a difficult time criticizing law-enforcement personnel for shooting the bear,” Beecham said. “You really only had two options: to tranquilize it or to kill it.”
When the bear guy signs off on the assassination.... SIGH!
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"Environmental Police overreacted by killing bear in Newton" June 05, 2013
The state Environmental Police, like any law enforcement agency, has an obligation to maintain public safety. But it is far from obvious that its decision Sunday to shoot and kill a small black bear in Newton served such a purpose.
The juvenile bear, which weighed about 120 pounds, had taken refuge up a tree adjacent to Washington Street near the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Isn't the Pike fenced off?
Environmental police officers attempted to shoot the bear with a tranquilizer dart, which would have made it possible to capture and relocate the animal. That’s standard procedure. But the tranquilizer gun misfired, leaving officers with the choice to wait and secure another tranquilizer gun, find another non-lethal solution, or use live ammunition. They chose the most extreme option.
Environmental Police officers offer a plausible explanation for their decision: They feared the bear could pose a threat to public safety if it got spooked, came down from the tree, and started to run through a densely populated neighborhood or onto a busy roadway. Second-guessing such a decision might be unfair if not for the fact that bear sightings in suburban neighborhoods are increasingly common. And there are a variety of alternatives to deadly force — ranging from hazing by dogs to rubber bullets — that can be used by professionals to deal with the situation, according to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Given a black bear’s normal lack of aggression, simply allowing it to move away of its own accord would also have been an acceptable solution.
That looks like one that WAS NEVER EVEN CONSIDERED! by authority!
Good law enforcement — no matter the jurisdiction — requires the use of the least amount of force to get the job done.
Then AmeriKa has bad law enforcement.
And all officers are required to maintain their weapons in good working order at all times. The Environmental Police failed the public — and the state’s wildlife — in these critical areas. The result was a sad and unnecessary death of a blameless creature.
What is sad about that last statement is the newspaper and authority seem to care more about the bear than the people blown away every day by police.
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