Before bear sightings in Westchester were somewhat regular occurrences, the travels of a 195-pound male black bear through Mount Pleasant, Greenburgh and White Plains was big news in the spring of 1997.
After three days of sightings in the two towns, including behind a Hartsdale pizzeria, police and state DEC officials convened a press conference on May 9 at Greenburgh police headquarters that drew more than a dozen reporters and photographers.
But it abruptly ended moments after it started when word came the bear had been sighted in White Plains. The DEC officers peeled out, followed by the media, everyone running red lights to make it over to the neighborhood around Mamaroneck and Bryant avenues.
The bear was loping through backyards before making its way across Mamaroneck Avenue and into the woods of Burke Rehabilitation Center. When it got to the nearby Ridgeway Country Club, a DEC wildlife technician shot the bear in the leg with a tranquilizer dart. The bear managed to make it 150 yards down the 15th fairway before collapsing on the practice green between the 15th and 16th holes.
He was released the next day in Catskill Park near Slide Mountain in Ulster County.
These pictures bring back memories for this reporter, as he’s in the background in some of the pictures and his jeans and sneakers can be seen in one of the pictures of the tranquilized bear behind some plainclothes White Plains cops.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: The Great Westchester Bear Hunt of 1997
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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