The Department of Energy & Environmental Protection will be holding four community listening sessions on bear management, including one in West Hartford.

By Ronni Newton

Connecticut’s Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) Wildlife Division has announced that four community listening sessions on bear management will be held throughout the state, including a session scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 16 in West Hartford.

According to DEEP, the facilitated discussion will focus on bear activity, public safety concerns, and strategies for living safely with bears. Input from residents and local leaders will be encouraged, and according to a news release from DEEP, “feedback from these sessions will inform the next phase of DEEP’s bear management planning, which includes the creation of a report that will describe the current state of the bear population in Connecticut, public perceptions toward bears, implications of the state’s growing bear population, and various strategies for mitigating bear-related impacts.”

According to DEEP’s website, thus far in 2025, there have been 969 bear sightings in West Hartford – more than any other municipality in the state, and many more than reported in 2024 according to the most recent “The State of the Bears” report.

The West Hartford session will be held at the Elmwood Community Center, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Space is limited and registration is required. Click here to register, and for further details.

In addition, there will be listening sessions in Sharon (Wednesday, Dec. 3), Derby (Thursday, Dec. 4), and Burlington (Wednesday, Dec. 10). You do not need to be a resident of the town where the session is being held in order to attend, and all sessions are free.

West Hartford Community Interactive will live stream the meeting on its YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@whci.

DEEP continues to encourage the reporting of beer sightings, and shared the following information in a news release:

“Bear sightings reported by the public provide valuable information to assist DEEP in monitoring changes in the black bear population. Anyone who observes a black bear in Connecticut is encouraged to report sightings online or send an email to the Wildlife Division at deep[email protected]. Information on the presence or absence of ear tags, including tag color and numbers, is particularly valuable. A common misconception is that a tagged bear is a bear that was involved in conflicts, and a bear with two ear tags was caught on two different occasions because of conflicts. Every bear receives two ear tags (one in each ear) the first time it is handled by DEEP biologists. Most tagged bears have not been caught due to human-bear conflicts but rather as part of a project researching the state’s bear population.”

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