Susan Brown was working in an upstairs office overflowing with books, papers, and photographs on Aug. 9 when she heard her 8-pound dog, Blue, barking downstairs.

Brown, 80, walked toward the living room and found an adult female black bear and one of her cubs inside. Blue was trying to confront them.

“There is a bear as big as the living room right there with a cub,” Brown recalled. “And my dog is trying to attack them!”

One of the bears bit or clawed Blue, leaving the small dog with two flesh wounds and a broken foot, Brown said. She called the dog upstairs, then faced the bears.

“Get out of here, you assholes!” Brown recalled shouting in a state of panic. “If you swear at them, they really move fast.”

The bears moved out of sight, and Brown initially thought they had left through the screened porch they had used to enter the home. She brought Blue upstairs, returned to the first floor, and closed a door behind her. The coast was clear, or so she thought.

Then she heard something in the kitchen.

The mother and cub were still inside, eating garbage. Brown had inadvertently shut off their path outside.

“I have now locked them in the house, and I go flying back upstairs, closing all the doors behind me, and called the cops,” she said.

Police arrived at Brown’s home on Glasco Turnpike in Woodstock. The commotion startled the mother bear, which escaped through an open kitchen window, tearing through its screen, Brown said. An officer carrying a rifle searched the home to make sure no other bears remained inside.

Black bears are a familiar presence across the Catskills, which is home to roughly a third of New York’s estimated bear population, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Black bears generally avoid people, so most encounters are peaceful. A bear entering someone’s home, however, represents a serious escalation, state wildlife officials said, particularly when the animal finds food and learns that houses can provide an easy source for their next meal.

Brown wasn’t injured. Blue was treated by a veterinarian and placed on antibiotics and other medication. Brown said her dog could barely walk, and was traumatized from the experience. “All I kept thinking was save the dog,” she said.

Brown is a professional writer, editor, and James Joyce scholar who has traveled internationally to lecture on Joyce. She first came to Woodstock in 1967 and later made the town her home.

The mostly original house dates to 1902 and is believed to have been the first house built at the Byrdcliffe arts colony, according to Brown. Its walls are covered with art, including works by Woodstock artists, and much of its furniture is original. 

Bears Move Between Homes

The mother had three cubs with her that evening, although Brown saw only one inside her house. Minutes earlier, the family had entered a neighbor’s shed.

Matt Weidner, 40, who works in technology and digital advertising, said he heard a bang at his home and found the mother’s head poking out of the shed. After he and his family made noise, the three cubs ran out.

“They beelined it to your place pretty much,” Weidner told Brown. “Within five minutes, you shot that text out.”

The mother returned to Weidner’s property around 6 a.m. the next day and approached a bird feeder, he said. Unlike bears that had quickly fled from him in the past, this one hissed, stepped back, and then turned toward the feeder again before leaving.

Brown said bears had been visiting her property for years. About six weeks before the Aug. 9 encounter, a bear broke through a screen at a studio on her property and carried away a bag of garbage that a tenant had left inside.

Brown had since removed her bird feeders, but she had not yet closed the door between her screened porch and living room when the bear arrived around 8 p.m. The bears reached the porch by breaking through its screen and then entered the house through the open door, she said.

DEC Offered to Trap Mother Bear

The state DEC offered to set a trap for the mother. If captured, the bear would have been euthanized, said John Milo, the department’s regional bear biologist for Ulster County and surrounding counties.

Once a bear enters a home and gets food, the likelihood that it will do so again is relatively high, Milo said.

“It’s very difficult once that behavior is established to get that behavior out of the animal again,” he said.

The dog’s injury and the potential danger to people elevated the episode beyond the kinds of conflicts that can ordinarily be addressed by removing food sources or frightening a bear away, Milo said.

Brown declined the offer to trap the mother.

“They live here, too,” she said. “I’m on their land as far as I’m concerned.”

Cubs are relatively self-sufficient by this point in the summer, Milo said, although the department evaluates each case individually. In some cases, wildlife officials attempt to trap the cubs and place them with a wildlife rehabilitator until they are large enough to be released.

The department instead provided Brown with two motion-activated alarms designed to frighten bears away from her home. One malfunctioned and was scheduled to be replaced, she said.

One bear was euthanized in Woodstock in 2025, and none have been euthanized in the town this year, Milo said. No bears were euthanized in Woodstock in 2023 or 2024.

Preventing Encounters

Woodstock participates in BearWise, a national program developed by bear biologists to help communities reduce conflicts between people and bears.

Milo advised residents to remove bird feeders from March through December and keep garbage in a secure building until the morning of collection. Other options include bear-resistant containers secured to a structure or electric fencing around garbage storage areas. Weidner takes his garbage out at 4:30 a.m. for pick up 15 minutes later, which has become routine especially with a 6-month-old son named Foster. 

Repeated access to birdseed, garbage, and pet food can make bears bolder and lead them to seek food inside vehicles and buildings, according to state environmental officials. BearWise also recommends feeding pets indoors, cleaning and securely storing grills, and closing bear-accessible doors and windows.

If a bear enters a building, people should back away, leave it a clear escape route, and avoid trapping it in a room, according to BearWise guidance. Residents should check their yards before letting dogs outside and bring pets indoors when a bear is nearby.

The Woodstock Town Board adopted a local law on July 7 that prohibits intentionally feeding bears and requires property owners to address food, garbage, and other items that attract them.

“Woodstock is home to many magnificent black bears, an important part of our natural environment,” Town Supervisor Anula Courtis said in a statement. “The safest approach, for residents, visitors, and bears, is to prevent encounters before they happen.”

Courtis urged people not to approach or feed bears and to secure garbage, remove bird feeders while bears are active, keep pet food indoors, and clean and safely store grills.

“Remember: feeding a bear can cost it its life, and when that bear is a mother, her cubs may be left without the protection they need to survive,” Courtis said.

Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.