👀 Not that long ago, Connecticut had no bears at all. By the middle of the 1800s farmers had cleared so much forest that black bears were gone from the state. Woods grew back after the farms were abandoned, and by the 1980s biologists were finding bears there again. Today Connecticut has up to 1,200 bears. People reported more than 12,000 sightings in 2025. A mother often leaves her cubs up a tree while she goes looking for food, so the state asks people to leave a lone cub be