There is some wildlife trouble in Greene County.The DEC has at least one report of bears wreaking havoc on a home in Tannersville.
Our crews stopped to talk with one resident about the problematic bears, and one of those bears decided we shouldn't be talking about her behind her back.
At the end of our interview with Tannersville resident Lori Forsey, reporter Katherine Underwood looked up to find a massive black bear hanging out less than 50 feet away.
“Don’t get scared,” Lori said laughing as she tried to calm everyone down.
She’s so used to the bear, she was getting a kick out of how it startled our crew.
Lori says this bear visits about two times a day -
“I told you, he is like a dog, he comes at breakfast and dinner time,” Lori explained.
She says this is one of at least three bears that roam the neighborhood near Crum Hill Road.
“He’ll come right up to the car and up on the stairs,” Lori said.
They haven’t done any damage to Lori's property, but that's not the case for her neighbors. And she actually caught the bears, red handed.
“Thank God no one was home because it was like noon,” Lori said as she showed us the photos she captured about two weeks ago when a mother bear and her cubs ransacked a home up the street.
“The babies started crying so the mother went to rescue it, she was actually in the house and came out a different window with a bag of sugar in her mouth,” Lori said pointing to the photos on her phone.
Lori says she isn't afraid of the bears, but with five grand kids running around she has had to change her ways.
“Once the sun starts going down I don't go outside,” she said. “We actually had a neighbor put a light right there so it shines on the whole yard.”
Now, even when she is home, Lori locks her windows and doors so these little rascals know to go right back where they came from.
“For the most part, if you just leave them alone, they wander off,” she said.
The situation extends beyond Clum Hill Road, residents and business owners on Main Street tell us they too are dealing with bear trouble and they want people to beware - don't feed them and keep your distance.
