Who Has More Bear Sightings This Year, New Milford or the Rest of Greater Danbury?

It's New Milford versus the field for bear supremacy.

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If you had to guess who has the most bear sightings this year, would you choose New Milford or the rest of Greater Danbury? For a more complete picture, New Milford is Connecticut's largest town and these are the towns that I'm considering as the rest of Greater Danbury:

• Danbury
• Brookfield
• Bethel
• Ridgefield
• Newtown
• New Fairfield

The rest of Greater Danbury is the correct answer but it's closer than you may think. New Milford has 93 sightings according to DEEP stats and the rest of Greater Danbury had 220. Here is the town by town breakdown:

New Milford - 93

Danbury - 43

Ridgefield - 24

New Fairfield - 29

Brookfield - 35

Newtown - 73

Bethel - 16

I would have guessed New Milford and Brookfield would be much higher and Danbury would be lower but what the hell do I know. According to NBC CT Simsbury has had the most bear sightings in 2023 with a total of 370. If you would like to report a bear, moose or bobcat sighting you can do so through the CT Deep website.

Here are some tips on bear safety from our I-95 Morning Show Wildlife Correspondent Jen "The Zookeeper" Kotkin:

• Clean your grills.
• Secure your garbage properly.
• Don't leave food out.
• Don't keep approaching a bear after it has recognized you.
• A bear doesn't want to fight you but it will.
• Bears can smell like you read about.
• Don't mace bears for fun.
• Don't attempt karate on bears.
• Carry a big stick.
• Make sure the bear is aware of you.
• Don't make eye contact or look at them head on. (They are like Mick Jagger)

I paraphrased a few of Jen's comments, this is some of what she told us in an April 2023 interview.

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