Caught on camera: Black bear eating neighborhood trash

<p>An Oakland resident recorded video of a black bear rummaging through and eating a neighbor&rsquo;s trash.</p>

News 12 Staff

Jun 20, 2018, 10:09 PM

Updated 2,147 days ago

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An Oakland resident recorded video of a black bear rummaging through and eating a neighbor’s trash.
Joe Lill says that he was at his daughter’s home in Oakland Tuesday night when he saw a 400-pound black bear in the neighborhood.
“I noticed the bear walking across my daughter’s lawn, in a beeline to the neighbor in the house behind us,” he says. “[The bear] went right for the garbage cans.”
Lill says that any garbage left out in the open can end up a meal for black bears in the area.
“After he broke into the shed, he took [the garbage] on the side and ate it for a half-hour,” Lill says.
Lill says that the bear wandered back into the mountains after eating the trash.
Neighbor John Cicala says that neighbors typically alert one another whenever a bear is spotted in the area.
“I think it’s part of life up here. There’s bears all over,” Cicala says. “Foxes, bears, coyotes sometimes. I think I’m more afraid of coyotes than I am a black bear.”
The residents tell News 12 New Jersey that bear sightings have dropped since the bear hunts. But they say that it is always good to be on guard and to keep trash tightly secured.
Wildlife officials say that anyone who spots a bear should keep their distance and avoid any contact.


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