During her first summer on the job, in 2022, Hamden’s Assistant Animal Control Officer Monica Vece responded to a wildlife call regarding the death of a “very beautiful, young” red-tailed hawk.
“Unfortunately, he ate something that had (pesticide) in it and he passed away, and that’s unfortunately a lot of what we’re seeing more and more as people move in,” she said.
Wildlife is naturally found in Hamden. With both Sleeping Giant State Park and the woods spread throughout town, sightings of wildlife are a part of daily life for residents.
Development and expansion over the years has led humans to encroach on local wildlife spaces. Natural storms, such as a tornado that ripped through Sleeping Giant in 2018, also damaged habitat for local fauna.
To compensate for less living space and more food scarcity, wildlife must travel further outside of their normal habitat. Due to this, wild animals end up interacting with humans.
According to Vece, during the summer of 2022 a lot of wildlife was seen in the north end of the Hampton Westwoods area. However, she added, reports have come from all across Hamden.
According to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) website, Hamden residents reported 99 bear and 59 bobcat sightings in 2022 alone. The numbers have risen since 2021, when residents reported sightings of 76 bears and 64 bobcats.
Jason Hawley, wildlife biologist with the furbearer and black bear program at DEEP, said there were 95 black bear sightings in Hamden. This disparity could point toward difficulties tracking these sightings.
Vece said these numbers could be due to residential expansion in the area.
“When you take away their places to live and you leave them with less options, they’re forced to kind of move into residential areas,” Vece said. “They don’t want to be in residential areas.”
According to Hawley, food availability also plays a large role in wildlife entering human-populated areas. However, for birds and birds of prey, habitat loss is more of a concern.
According to Quinnipiac University Chief of Public Safety Tony Reyes, there were at least three reports of bear sightings around the university in 2022.
Luis Arata, a Quinnipiac University professor who heads the Sleeping Giant Park Association, says a tornado from 2018 is to blame for the increased bear sightings on campus.
“The 2018 tornado ripped through the park and disturbed the human-wildlife balance,” Arata wrote in an email to HQNN. “(It) destroyed the entire pine grove at the park entrance. Pockets of tree damage are everywhere, particularly on the north side of the mountain.”
This tornado destroyed areas of habitat for bears, causing the creatures to wander off the park. This has led to more sightings near Quinnipiac’s Mount Carmel campus.
Reyes also expressed a need for students to know about the possibility of wild animals entering campus.
“(I want to put information) out just so people are aware and have a better understanding of what the potential is for danger with some of these wildlife,” Reyes said. “Also so that they’re aware that, because of where we’re situated, there is that potential (for wildlife).”
Aerial photograph of North Hamden, 1990 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of North Hamden, 2004 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of North Hamden, 2006 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of North Hamden, 2008 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of North Hamden, 2010 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of North Hamden, 2012 / University of Connecticut
Both Hawley and Vece emphasized that residents should take precautions to avoid attracting bears, such as securing their garbage and taking down their bird feeders.
“We need people to do (these things) to avoid conflicts and avoid habituating bears, which is not healthy for the bears,” Hawley said. “People just need to take responsibility to avoid habituating bears as the reach expands.”
If bird feeders and garbage are left accessible, he explained, bears may use them as reliable food sources, causing the bears to become habituated.
“It’s more about food availability than habitat itself,” Hawley added. “(Bears) are pretty easily habituated.”
Hamden, Hawley said, is on the “outer fringe of bear range” at the moment.
“The bear population will continue to expand south and into eastern Connecticut,” he said. “The pattern we’re seeing is this population will continue to expand.”
According to the Connecticut DEEP website, the bear population in the state is “increasing and expanding,” with the total population estimated to be around 1,000-1,200. A report from 2019 estimates the population at around 800 and one in 2009 estimates the population at around 300-500.
Summer is the most active time of year for Hamden Animal Control. During this time in 2022, Vece responded to nearly 100 wildlife calls.
Some of these calls include the deaths of wild animals. Unfortunately, Vece said, many of these are a result of secondhand poisonings. This has especially been an issue for local birds of prey, such as the red-tailed hawk she saw in summer 2022.
If a mouse ingests poison and is then eaten by a hawk, the hawk is affected by that poison and may also die.
“A lot of these places put down the (poison) pellets because it’s easy and cheap, but it actually really harms our wildlife,” Vece said.
Residents can often see hawks near their homes during the spring. Tomas Casey, a Hamden resident, said he has even seen them in his yard chasing mice.
“Oftentimes in the morning I will see hawks, especially in the springtime, like mother, family hawks with their babies, all flying with the updrafts of the hill,” Casey said. “They tend to come up from that side of the mountain and up over our street and over my house.”
Casey is not the only person to see wildlife on a regular basis. Vece said Hamden residents have reported seeing more wildlife than in years prior.
“Speaking with people in the town, they did say that they’re seeing a lot more wildlife this past summer than they have in the past,” she said.
Although Hamdenites are reporting more wildlife sightings, some residents have noticed certain populations dwindling.
“When I first moved to this house (20 years ago), there were a lot of wild turkeys. My house kind of sits below the street (level), and I would hear them landing on my roof,” Casey said. “There’d be like five or six of them–a large group of them. And, honestly, I haven’t seen turkeys on my street probably in, I don’t know, maybe 10 years.”
However, there are still healthy numbers of foxes and deer in the area.
“(Foxes) have been denning in people’s backyards,” Vece said. “They’ve been seen crossing through neighborhoods. Some have seen the cubs playing with each other in backyards.”
Aerial photograph of South Hamden, 1990 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of South Hamden, 2004 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of South Hamden, 2006 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of South Hamden, 2008 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of South Hamden, 2010 / University of Connecticut 
Aerial photograph of South Hamden, 2012 / University of Connecticut
Vece also said about 40 deer were hit by vehicles in 2022. Casey regularly sees deer walking through his yard.
“I have a couple of fawns, like two or three of them, that come marching through the yard on a pretty regular basis,” he said.
However, it seems the deer are not afraid of barking dogs.
“They’re pretty much used to (people). I do have a dog, and the dog does go crazy when they’re out there,” Casey said. “But they don’t seem to run because the dog is barking at them.”
Hawley also said building houses within wildlife habitat increases the chances of them interacting with humans. The animal most often reported to Hawley’s department is “definitely bears.”
“(Loss of) habitat is probably the most important issue we deal with here in Connecticut because we’re such a developed state,” he added.
Carl Soulsbury and Piran White wrote in a 2015 article for Bio One Complete that incidents between humans and wildlife are not random occurrences and often happen in suburban areas, near swaths of their natural habitats.
Many areas of Hamden fit this description. However, the town has changed over the years with recent development. The most notable change on aerial photographs of Hamden is the construction of Quinnipiac University’s York Hill Campus. In the photos below, the campus location is indicated by the red circle.
Construction on this campus first appeared in 2006 aerial photographs and was later expanded by 2008, essentially doubling the area of greenery removed. The campus site itself is 234 acres.
Casey said that one of his neighbors has taken in injured squirrels before in order to raise them and release them back into the wild. Casey said he has had a couple of “altercations” with squirrels, as he called the incidents.
“(There was) a squirrel that used to come up to my house, it’s all glass on one side, and come up to the side of glass windows,” Casey said. “(It would) sit there and tease my dog and tap on the window and go back and forth, (or stand) up on top of a deck chair looking into the house.”
Yet, while humans may feel the urge to interact with wild creatures, the best thing to do when you see wildlife, Vece said, is to leave them alone.
“We always tell everybody don’t feed them, don’t try to be friends with them because you want them to stay afraid of humans,” she said. “You want them to have that fear because this is what keeps them where they’re supposed to be.”
Report sightings of bears and other wildlife to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Reach out to Hamden Animal Control at (203) 230-4080 to report incidents with wildlife.