Out of the woods and into the pool: a black bear's odyssey

HOWARD NEWMAN PHOTO

Howard Newman lives on a wooded expanse off Pine Brook Road, not far from protected land preserves. His mailbox is in Bedford but his house is in Pound Ridge. Last Thursday, a bear with no boundaries passed by a sizable lake and climbed two fences to tiptoe down into the blue, manmade pool in Newman’s yard.

Newman spotted the large mammal when he went to the kitchen to make some tea. 

“I did a double take,” he said. “It was a bear, lying in the pool, swimming back and forth.”

He shot photos and video as the creature bear-paddled around, played with the pool vacuum’s tether tube, then lumbered onto land. Newman said he made some noise, and instead of running off, the bear sauntered over to the sliding glass door to check him out.

“He looked very friendly, but you can never really tell with these bears,” Newman told The Recorder.

It was 95 degrees that afternoon, he noted.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/cad6d1_0479772fe7df495ab47a258d31981965/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Newman’s video shows the bear standing on its hind legs and pawing a branch of a blue spruce trying to reach something that wasn’t clear, then snacking on a white rose before ambling off. Newman’s video can be seen on Instagram @therecordernewpaper.