NY Hunter Caught Baiting Black Bear! Want to Guess What He Used?

According to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation Black Bear  hunting season started as early at September 17th and will wrap up 2022 on New Year's Eve.

There are a variety of ways to hunt black bear in New York State from bow hunting, crossbow and muzzle loading are a few legal ways to hunt. Using donuts would not be a way to do it. That didn't stop one individual.

Get our free mobile app

The Humane Society of North America explains bear baiting as the practice of feeding animals, in this case black bear, to lure them to an area that would make it easier to hunt and kill. This is illegal in New York.

On Sunday October 2nd, DEC officers investigated a bear baiting case in Sullivan County where a hunter allegedly used donuts to bait black bear. Officers discovered donuts placed in trees, smeared on bark and placed in tree knots.

DEC officers Parker and Doroski teamed with the DEC's Bureau of Environmental Crime Investigations to complete the investigation. Officials hiked several miles over several days when they spotted an individual bow hunting. Not unusual, but wait, there's more.

The bow hunter was located in one of the suspected stands. When asked about the donut evidence, the hunter claimed that he brought the donuts on his trip for his own consumption. The hunter claims to have dropped the donuts on the tree and ground in the area but he also had a large box of donuts in his backpack.

The hunter in question was ticketed for hunting bear with the aid of bait, failure to display a back tag, injuring trees on State land, littering on State land, failing to label stands/blinds with a name/address, and several other State land offenses.