New Jersey’s News 12 just reported on a black bear that was captured on video sitting halfway up an electrical pole at a busy downtown intersection in the city of Wyckoff.
The bear was captured on video by high school student Will Petrie who was riding in the passenger seat while his mom was behind the wheel driving the vehicle.
“Oh my gosh, there’s a bear,” Will told New 12. “And my mom was like, ‘No there’s not.’ And I was like, ‘Look, look.’ She freaked out!”
The video shows the bear sitting on a wire that was connected to the electrical pole with many bystanders standing below on the sideway and the street below watching.
“We didn’t want it to get hurt because it looked like it couldn’t really stay on the pole for much longer,” Will said.
Wildlife authorities were called to the area to handle the situation. They noted that New Jersey’s black bear population has awoken from hibernation, which is leading to increased encounters with humans.
Officials say bear sightings are up 80% since April and the cases of bears damaging property or being too close to people have doubled.
New Jersey’s wildlife experts said, before hibernation, the Fish and Game Council approved an emergency order for a bear hunting to be allowed to decrease the numbers, and therefore human interactions, but Gov. Phil Murphy denied it, keeping his promise to stop the black bear hunt in New Jersey.
Authorities said that so far in New Jersey, a woman was attacked by a bear on May 11 while she was checking her mail. Another bear attacked a resident in January and another man said a bear went on a rampage in his backyard in April, killing all his chickens.