The bear came, feasted on garbage and then skedaddled through a hole in the fence after it was spooked, said a witness.
A bear that wandered into the Hathaway Farms apartment complex Tuesday afternoon dines on some morsels found some trash bags.What appears to be a radio collar can be seen around its neck.NORTHAMPTON
- Residents of Hathaway Farms apartments off Barrett Street had an unannounced visitor Tuesday afternoon as a black bear wandered in and started scavenging through trash barrels looking for food.Resident Patti Steele said the bear was ripping open trash bags and seemed to be taking his time eating what was inside. "He was enjoying it," she said.
The police were called to the scene but the bear ran off on its own, said Northampton police Lt. Michael Patenaude.
Steele said the bear appeared to get "spooked" by something and then darted off though a small hole in the fence into a wooded area near the apartments.
She said her husband spotted the bear earlier in the day hanging around on one of the trees on the grounds.
Steele estimated the bear was about a year old, and it appeared to have a collar around its neck.
Wildlife biologist John McDonald puts a radio telemetry collar on a sedated yearling black bear outside its den in Williamsburg in this 1997 file photo.Patenaude said the collar means the bear had previously been tagged by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The state DEP uses radio collars to track movements of bears as part of their ongoing study of their habitat.
Hathaway Farm apartments are off King Street, roughly a mile away from downtown Northampton.
There have been several bear sitings in the Pioneer Valley in recent weeks in such places as Holyoke and Springfield.
Wildlife experts say this is the time of year for increased bear sightings, as the animals wander around looking for food. Increasingly they are moving into more settled areas, attracted by easy food sources such as bird feeders and, in this case, trash barrels.