• Black bear was seen several times downtown.
• Two complaints received Saturday that the bear had gotten into sheds to get garbage.
• Bear reportedly head-butted rear of vehicle.
• Warden set up a trap, but removed it because of human safety concerns.
• Police notified at 9:45 p.m. Saturday that the bear was at 32 Pleasant St.
• Rangeley police officer Brian Hughes tried to scare the bear away from downtown. He shot a couple of rounds into the ground and the bear walked behind the house.
• He drove to School Street, the next one over, and saw the bear walking toward a party where 10 to 15 people are having a barbecue. He got between the bear and the party; the bear stopped and looked at him.
• Officer Tony Duvall arrived and Hughes told him to get the shotgun in case the bear got agitated.
• Bear turned away from the party, and Hughes followed it, yelling to make it go away.
• Bear walked across to School Street and the front lawn of Wilson residence to a large maple tree. The family’s dog ran up close to the bear and barked aggressively at it.
• Bear warbled, fell against the tree and did not respond to Hughes’ yelling and the dog’s barking.
• Dog came near officer, bear started breathing heavily, snorting, hissing and growling, then stamped its feet and came toward Hughes.
• Hughes fired a .40-caliber shot with his pistol at the bear’s head. It leaped back against the tree, and sat there. Hughes told Duvall to give him the shotgun because the bear had obviously became agitated.
• The wounded bear turned, walked out back and stopped again.
• Hughes shot the bear twice more in the shoulder and its body and it ran into the woods.
• Hughes thought it had been hit hard enough to die and patrolled streets to make sure it didn’t come back.
• Gary Wilson found the bear Sunday. It was buried Monday in an undisclosed spot.
Source: Rangeley Police Department
Warden: I wasn’t happy bear was shot’
Witnesses don’t like the way an animal call was handled
RANGELEY – The shooting of a black bear by police Saturday night in this northern Franklin County town has stirred up controversy over whether it was necessary.
“I wasn’t happy that the bear was shot,” Warden Reggie Hammond said Thursday.
“The whole subject is pretty sad,” he said. “Obviously shooting the bear was the last resort.”
Several bears had been spotted in the area in the last few weeks, which is normal at this time of year, but one in particular had been acting strange and was not frightened by people, Rangeley Police Chief Philip Weymouth said Thursday. It did not react to attempts to frighten it away, including gunshots fired into the ground, yelling or clapping, and a barking dog close to its face, he said.
Officers were able to scare other bears into the woods away from the downtown but not this particular black bear, Weymouth said. The bear was getting into people’s garbage and breaking into sheds and a porch that was attached to a house. It also head-butted the rear of vehicle on Saturday, Weymouth said.
Police say the bear stepped toward officer Brian Hughes on Saturday after hissing, growling, snorting and stamping its feet in a charging manner while he was trying to make it move from a residence downtown late Saturday night.
A woman at the residence, Amanda Wilson, said Wednesday that she was looking out the window and she didn’t see the bear charge the officer. She said their German shepherd/chow mix dog was barking nose-to-nose with the bear, and the bear didn’t harm it. It looked as if the bear was trying climb a maple tree in the yard to hide, and it was only snarling after it had been shot, she said. It had been in her yard the day before, she said, and she didn’t feel endangered.
Her husband, Gary Wilson, said that an hour before the bear was shot he opened his house door and the bear was about 2 inches away from the dog.
He said he is upset that no one bothered to look for the bear after it had been shot and ran into the woods behind his house. He found it Sunday about 100 yards from a ball field and called the warden.
Police say the bear was shot three times, they expected it to die, and they patrolled the streets in the area to make sure it didn’t come out of the woods again.
State black bear biologist Jennifer Vashon said Wednesday that from what was described to her by Weymouth about the bear, including its missing and worn teeth and lack of fear, it was having a hard time getting food and probably searching dumpsters and people’s garbage to find something to eat.
She said the bear would have kept coming back and could pose a danger to public safety, adding that the shooting was justified.
Bears are part of life in the Rangeley area during the summer months, Hammond said, and people need to take in their garbage and bird feeders. If people do away with the food sources, the bears wouldn’t bother people, he said. One way to prevent bears from touching the garbage is to soak rags in ammonia.
He has received a lot of phone calls, he said, and about 90 percent of the people are upset about the bear’s being shot.
Part of the problem, Hammond said, is that with all the new development, people are moving in who are not familiar with dealing with bears.
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