Black Bear Captured in Short Hills Yard

A wandering black bear was tracked down on Monday by Millburn Police and Animal Control officers in the Windemere Terrace and West Road neighborhood of Short Hills.

Residents began calling police around 6:30 a.m. with reports of a black bear walking though their backyards, police said.

“I came downstairs around 7:30 or so, and saw him walking across my deck,” said Cynthia Tratnyek, who lives on West Road. “It scared the hell out of me. I jumped and yelled to my husband, ‘There’s a bear in the yard.’

"Then I called my friend who’s a police dispatcher, and he started laughing and asked me what my address was because police were all over the neighborhood looking for the bear,” she said.

The bear then started wandering to a neighbor’s backyard, where their dog started barking. “I think that scared him because that’s when he went up the tree,” she said.

Officers located the bear, described as about one year old and weighing about 100 pounds, in a tree in the backyard of Tratnyek’s neighbor’s West Road residence. 

Millburn Police and Animal Control officers waited in the yard, watching the bear, for wildlife technicians from the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife to arrive and tranquilize the bear.

“It took awhile,” Tratnyek said. “My girls didn’t want to go to school because it was so exciting. But they had to. They were really excited to hear all about it when they got home.

After the bear was shot with the tranquilizer, it left the tree and wandered up the street, Miller said.

Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said the bear wandered into his yard where it became groggy and was eventually captured.  "He was just a little guy," the West Road resident said.

Tratnyek said the bear was bigger than her five-year-old daughter and seemed pretty big to her.

“He was very cute though,” she said.

Captain Jim Miller, Millburn Police Public Information Officer, said, "We haven't had a bear in a long time and then we get this little one. We were just talking about that with Animal Control the other day and he said, 'Don't jinx it.' "

Last week, there were two black bear sightings in Livingston. The first happened at on Route 10. The next day, the bear was sighted near and police asked children to stay inside during recess and physical education as a precaution. The bear was seen again over the weekend near the West Orange border, said Det. Sgt. Anthony Dippold.

"Whether its the same bear, we don't know," Miller said.