Wildlife officials looking for Sussex County bear with head stuck in chicken feeder

Sightings of a young bear walking around Sussex County with parts of a chicken feeder stuck on its head continue to grow.

The bear with the plastic feeder, which resembles a recovery cone commonly used on dogs and cats, was first spotted in the Bear Swamp Wildlife Management Area last October.

First recorded by trail cameras, the bear is about a year old and in a period of rapid growth from cub to near-mature animal, and the funnel-shaped feeder is beginning to get tight.

"I'm concerned about its future growth," said Parker Space, head of the family that owns Space Farms Zoo and Museum and has bears among its animals.

"It appears to be healthy, and I don't think its feeding is bothered much," he said. He cautioned residents in that area against putting out food, thinking they are helping the yearling.

The opposite could happen, he said, as the animal would lose its natural fear of people "and then get into more trouble."

The state Division of Fish and Wildlife is aware of the young bear's predicament and is looking to narrow down the area frequented by the bear and its mother so it can efficiently put out a barrel trap, designed to capture bears alive so they can be relocated or, in this case, de-plasticized.

"Our bear response team is doing all it can to trap this bear and remove the chicken feeder from its head," said Lawrence Hajna, press officer for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Biologists have come close to trapping it on a few occasions, he said.

"At this time, the young bear appears to be able to eat and drink sufficiently to survive," Hajna said. "Bears are very resilient and adaptive animals, but the feeder may clearly present an impediment as it grows."

Bear Swamp is part of a 1,000-acre, state-owned wildlife management area and straddles the border between Frankford and Hampton townships. It is also close to the Kittatinny Ridge, which forms part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, as well as Stokes State Forest

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This bear appears to have been born in January 2021 and spent that summer growing under the watchful eye of its mother. At some point, it appears, the cub and possibly its mother raided a poultry area.

A popular kind of feeder for poultry is a cone of plastic that attaches to a large saucer-shaped bottom. The cone tapers at the top and has fins at the bottom to hold it to the base.

It appears from photos that the young bear was able to get its head down through the small top of the feeder, but couldn't pull back out. Instead, the base came off and the cub got trapped, head-first, in the cone.

Space said a bear's skull is much bigger than its neck, and not being able to grab the slick plastic, the bear can't free itself.

"Bears are one of the few animals that continue to grow all their life," Space said. "They get 90% of their growth in their first five years, and this one is still growing at a good rate."

Young bears stay with their mother for more than a year after birth. Born in midwinter, the cubs will spend the next winter denned with their mother. In late spring, the female bear will chase the young ones away and mate with several males.

The chased-out youngsters will have learned how to find food, Space said, but he said he's not sure of how much this particular yearling is able to adapt.

Photos taken on trail cameras this spring have shown the growing cub, still with its mother.

On the subject of how to capture and remove the cone, Space said it would be difficult to get close enough to shoot the bruin with a tranquilizer gun.

"Those kinds of drugs need to be done right," said Space, who is licensed to use such a weapon at his zoo. "You need to know within a few pounds how much the animal weighs to get the right dosage."

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Too much sedative can kill the animal, and not enough, especially in the wild, would allow the animal to run off into hiding.

The barrel traps used by state wildlife biologists to capture bears have a trap door on one end of the barrel. When an animal crawls inside and grabs the bait, a trap door is triggered, slamming shut on the open end of the trap.

At that point, biologists would have a controlled environment in which to tranquilize the animal and remove the plastic cone.

Professionals also have to make sure the mother bear isn't around to interfere.

Help Asheville Bear, a group from North Carolina, has offered its drone services to help find the bear once an area has been singled out. Individuals from the Sussex County area who spot the bear can help locate it with timely reports.

Anyone who spots the bear is asked to call the Division of Fish and Wildlife at 908-735-6938 or 908-735-8793.

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Bear with head stuck in plastic cone spotted in Sussex County