Bears seen locally; don’t attract them to your garden

Taking down your bird feeders is one way to eliminate a food source that attracts black bears. (This is a stock photo, not a picture of the black bear spotted locally.) Photo courtesy Steve Pfiffer, Coldwell Banker, Bugwood.org Earlier this month, a black bear was spotted in Cheektowaga, and before that, in Lancaster. “We have recently begun to see a rise in reported sightings of black bears in suburban and urban areas,” said Basil Seggos, commissioner of the New York State…