The 50-gallon drum, stuffed with a sticky mélange of molasses and croissants and doughnuts and birdseed and corn, sat in a secluded New Jersey swamp for more than a month with only two recurrent visitors. One was Jeff Melillo, a 46-year-old general contractor, who regularly stopped by to replenish the mass with mounds of doughy sucrose. The other was a 700-pound male black bear, with a white blaze across his chest, who habitually dipped his mammoth paws through a small opening in the vat of sweet, soft goodness, gobbling up whatever mess emerged.
For 30 days in September and October 2019, Melillo baited the behemoth to the site, not only with hundreds of pounds of pastries but also with blueberry and honey sprays engineered to target the bear’s hypersensitive snout.