October 12:
Bear Orange-288 is captured and hazed
DEEP traps a mother bear with two cubs deep in the forest on the border of two nature reserves. After spending 16 hours in the trap, DEEP arrives and drugs her while her cubs watch from the safety of a tree on the private reserve that did not allow DEEP to capture and drug the cubs. DEEP fit her with a GPS collar, then woke her up to torture her for an hour before shooting at her to make her run away. The second time she was captured, they shot at her each time she tried to return for her cubs. Eventually, she hid and waited for them to leave, before finally retrieving her cubs and running away from the trap she has now been trapped in twice.
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11:48 AM (Video):
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12:13 PM (Video)
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12:16PM (Video)
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October 16:
Bear Orange-288 is captured and hazed... again
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October 16, 2020 Hazing Video 1
Melissa Ruczcyk is seen hazing a terrified mother bears, hundreds of yards deep into the forest of a public land trust nature preserve and mere feet from private nature preserve.
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October 16, 2020 Hazing Video 2
After hazing the bear for the second time that week, they release the bear after poking her with metal poles and deafening her with banging and yelling, DEEP officials shoot rubber bullets at her as she feels for dear life. Her cubs were protected by the private preserve owner, who refused to allow DEEP and wildlife police to access his land to capture and haze the cubs.
October 17:
Orange-288 and her cubs are eating sunflower seeds in Ginny Apple's backyard.
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Ginny Apple is a DEEP "Master Wildlife Conservationist" who gives talks to educate people on the need to secure attractants to reduce the bear problem in Connecticut. Ginny was one of the leaders in an effort to ban bear-feeding in her town. Though such an ordinance is necessary to have to stop inappropriate feeding near houses, the motivation for and application of the ordinance has been to harass those advocating for better, open-minded, and science based management that does not align with DEEP's hunting agenda.
November 21:
Jason Hawley , the second-most senior bear biologist for DEEP, admits that DEEP knows Ginny has been feeding bears "for years"
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Since September 2020, DEEP has worked with the Hartland Land Trust to trap and torture allegedly "bold bears" deep in the forest along the border of two nature reserves: Hartland Land Trust, and Nature Havens. Despite all the science showing that in order for aversive conditioning to have any effect, it has to be done immediately after the animal misbehaves. Despite the bears routinely being lured to Ginny's house to "misbehave", DEEP instead chose to capture and torture the "good" bears who were deep in the forest, 600-1,200 yards away from the closest homes.