I always thought it was curious that bears have been continuously present in VT and PA, but not NY. I can't say about Utica... but several years ago a so-called hunter shot a bear illegally just South of there in Tioga or Broome when bears were rare in NY. He said the bear charged. The DEC, appropriately, had him arrested and jailed since there was no understory torn up by a charging bear. The population has rapidly increased so now hunting is allowed in most of the State. The DEC will certainly have up to date information on their web site. I am living out of state now so I am not up to date. The DEC recently had the state divided into several areas wrt to bear populations, no bears and don't want no bears (urban), breeding bear populations and fine with those levels in two or three population levels, rare (transient, migrating) bears and keep it that way, and reduce high levels (Catskills). I believe that you either in a transient bear area, that may border on low level to the South or possibly in that low level area. The whole Erie-Ontario and Mohawk lowlands are low-transient. Chenango county is low bear, but Madision, I don't know.

I live in Herkimer, and have personally seen 3 bears in the last 30 years...fortunately all 3 times they were running away from me. One was spotted at the trails behind the college this summer and they put out alerts to the hikers. They are here...but my experience with them is that they do not want to interact with us.