Hey, bear, smile- you're on candid camera!

MONROE-Imagine sitting in the backyard of your friend's house, in a highly developed suburban development. You are laughing and hanging out on a recent afternoon this month when all of a sudden, a bear is walking the sidewalk and crossing the streets. What would you do? As her friends ran into the house, Mari Fandl whipped out her camera and took some shots as the furry beast crossed the sidewalk. "I was first to see it and when I pointed it out, they were like, ‘Oh my God,' and ran inside," recalled Fandl, a 25-year old skin car specialist. "That's when I got out the camera." Fandl said the location where she saw the bear and snapped the photos was on Peterson Lane, off Amy Todt Road in the Village of Monroe. The area is a well-developed area and she was surprised to see a bear walking around almost as though it was familiar with the area. "There's sidewalks and everything," Fandl said. "My friend's mother said that this was the first time she saw a bear there." Fandl said. "Maybe like if you go more upstate in more wooded areas - but it's pretty uncommon here. When it first came out, I said is it just me, or is that the biggest dog you ever saw?" Although such sightings may be uncommon, they are not unknown. Monroe Town Supervisor Sandy Leonard recalled seeing a bear in Harriman Heights as well as along Route 17M just passed Museum Village. "He just sat there with his arm out - like he was waiving," Leonard said. The town, for all its development, has more woodland today, including a portion of the Appachian Trial, than it did at the turn of the century when mining and lumbering were essential to the local economy. According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the largest bear ever reported from New York weighed in at approximately 750 pounds. Fandl believes she saw an average male, which usually weighs in at about 300 pounds, while a female would hit the scale at about 160 pounds. Whatever the size, the DEC recommends never approaching a bear. Fandl said she called the police, who responded to the area to make sure the bear was gone. "Once we realized that it was far enough away from us that we weren't in any danger, we started laughing about it," Fandl said. "It's very dangerous, especially when it's walking in the street in an area like that." When asked if she had ever seen a bear before, Fandl replied, "No, only in the zoo."