By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
A black bear was sighted in Princeton Township on Wednesday morning in the Russell Estates area.
Police received calls between 6:40 a.m. and 7 a.m. about sightings of the bear in the areas of Ober Road and Winant Road.
Police who saw the bear think it was an adult, said Sargent Michael Cifelli of the Community Services Bureau of the Princeton Township police.
”The best we can tell, it was not a cub,” he said. “It was running through the yards of one of the houses over there.”
Animal Control and the Division of Fish and Wildlife were notified by Princeton Township Police.
The bear was thought to be moving toward Lawrence Township, near Bristol Meyers Squibb property.
Lawrence police did receive calls about bear sightings in the area of Rosedale Road and Province Line Road, said Leiutenant Charles Edgar of the Lawrence Police Department. The first call came just before 8 a.m., and was referred to animal control, he said.
The bear has not been seen since Wednesday morning and police are treating it as an isolated incident, said Mr. Cifelli.
The Hun School was notified of the sighting.
”We did not have another sighting yesterday after the early morning report,” said Maureen E. Leming, director of communications and marketing at the Hun School.
A few faculty members and a coach saw the bear.
”Nonetheless, students and faculty have been instructed not to approach or attempt to agitate the bear, but to leave the area calmly and slowly and notify a school administrator.”
A bear caused a commotion last month in East Windsor after it climbed a tree near Exit 8 on the New Jersey Turnpike and it took hours to bring it down.
At the time, DEP spokesman Lawrence Hajna said the majority of black bears in the state, about 3,400, live in the rural woodlands of the northwest region. Black bears are not common in the rest of New Jersey, but they have been spotted in every county.

