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A Bear was shot by a Middleton homeowner.

A Bear was shot by a Middleton homeowner.

A Bear was shot by a Middleton homeowner.

A Bear was shot by a Middleton homeowner.

MIDDLETON — A black bear was shot and killed by a property owner near Harold Parker State Forest on Friday morning.

The bear was attacking chickens in a pen at the time, and was reported to have killed two goats at the same location the night before at 7:30 p.m., said Troy Wall, communications director for the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

He was an 80-pound male, and both incidents were called into the Middleton Police Department and the Massachusetts Environmental Police, Wall said.

“Currently Massachusetts Environmental Police is investigating,” he said. “No charges have been filed at this time.”

Massachusetts law allows landowners, under certain circumstances, “to kill a bear that is caught in the act of damaging their property,” Wall said.

Dave Wattles, a biologist with Mass Wildlife, said he believes the same bear has been seen in Middleton, Boxford, Andover, North Andover, Wilmington and Tewksbury several times over the last month and a half.

The bear was “moving through the whole area,” Wattles said, and had “concentrated in and around Harold Parker.”

“I had an email from the Andover Animal Control Officer two days ago, and she was reporting several instances of the bear getting into chickens on the west side of Harold Parker,” Wattles said. “Some of those incidents were spread out over 3 miles, but that’s easily a distance a bear can travel.”

While black bears are common in central and western Massachusetts, Wall said, sightings are becoming more common in this part of the state.

Bears moving into this region, like the one that was killed in Middleton, are typically young males, Wattles said, “dispersing out of established range, looking for territory for themselves.”

Bears will eat just about anything plant-based, as well as meat, he said, “but 95 percent of their diet is plant-based. The only meat they’re getting is carrion, scavenging on dead animals. This time of year their biggest natural food is acorns.”

After hibernating all winter, they eat wetland vegetation in the spring, then berries in summer, and they also break into ant and wasp nests.

“Every single bear in Massachusetts will take advantage of the food source that is available,” Wattles said.

Unfortunately, that includes bird feeders and unsecured garbage

“Those are free meals,” Wattles said. “Bears evolved to eat as much as possible when they’re active, because they’re not going to eat” when they’re hibernating in winter.

Bird feeders are the main thing that draws bears onto people’s property, he said, while chicken coops are like the stumps and rotten logs where they forage for insects.

“It’s the same thing for them,” Wattles said. “It’s a structure with food inside.”

Incidents like Friday’s could be avoided if people remove bird feeders from their yards and use electric fencing to protect coops and pens.

“This is a conflict, but it can be prevented by teaching people,” he said.

More information on avoiding bear conflicts can be found at www.mass.gov/black-bears-in-massachusetts.

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