Police say the decision was justified.

RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – State biologists and city police are defending the shooting of a large black bear that had been seen in the city in recent days.

“We dispatched it in the interest of safety because it’s Halloween and the kids are out there,” Lt. Kevin Geno said Friday after the bear was felled from a tree in a city cemetery.

“We had nothing to tranquilize it with,” he added.

Biologists say that once a bear has lost its fear of humans, it is likely to keep returning to populated areas in search of food. Geno said he did not want to risk a dangerous encounter between the bear and human, especially with the crowds that would be out for the holiday.

Game Warden Donald Isabelle, who was at the scene Friday, said he’d never heard of a bear entering the city in his 16 years on the job. Chances were the bear, which probably traveled several blocks down State Street or West Street to reach the cemetery, was motivated by hunger, he said.

This has been a particularly scarce year for the mast crops – acorns and beechnuts – that make up a bear’s usual fall diet, he said. Consequently, bears have been on the move, coming down from their usual habitat high in the mountains to search for food in cornfields, commercial beehives and backyards.

Though black bears are usually more fearful of humans than the other way around, Isabelle agreed police had done the right thing in killing the animal, given its recent expeditions into the city.

“It probably would have come back,” he said. “The fact that thousands of people will be in the city for the Halloween Parade, it probably wasn’t a bad decision.”

Several neighbors who witnessed the bear’s demise said they thought the animal should have been spared.

“I think they should have tranquilized it and put it in a wooded area, given it a second chance,” said Nicole Gaboriau, 27, of 112 State St.

“He looked pretty frightened. He never made a move out of that tree,” said Diane Hart, another neighbor. “I don’t think it bothered anybody.”

A state biologist who has studied bears for 20 years said that, in his experience, moving a troublesome bear is rarely sufficient to break its bad habits.

“To move a problem bear, you’re just simply moving the problem,” said Forrest Hammond, a state Fish & Wildlife biologist in Springfield.

“It just causes trouble elsewhere.”