Caretakers at a taxpayer-funded Long Island animal refuge blasted their star attraction, Honey the Bear, with a high-pressure hose to get the hobbled, elderly ursine to move, advocates say a new video shows.
Images obtained by The Post show Honey in her outdoor enclosure at the state-licensed Holtsville Ecology Center on July 6, 2022, with her head down, facing a wall as she’s being hosed by the strong spray.
It was a technique used whenever the struggling, 27-year-old black bear wasn’t moving fast enough for center workers, claimed advocacy group Humane Long Island, which alleged the facility regularly neglects the more than 100 sick or injured animals in its care.
Humane Long Island played the clip outside a Town of Brookhaven council meeting this week. It shows the lumbering animal slowly managing to turn herself around as the water hits her.
Eventually, Honey takes a small step forward and stops again before the 27-second clip cuts off.
“Come on Honey,” a woman coos at one point in the footage, urging the bear, “Wanna go in?”
Daniel Losquadro, the head of the Town of Brookhaven’s Highway Department, which oversees the center, slammed Humane Long Island and staunchly defended his workers’ treatment of Honey.
“People are entitled to their own opinion but they’re not entitled to their own facts,” he told The Post.
The heat index the day the video was taken was 105 degrees, and Honey was not moving into the shade, he said.
“The only time that is done is if we have concerns about her health and wellbeing and she wouldn’t move on her own. If she didn’t want to go inside it would at least cool her off,” he said. “The only time we would ever wet her down was if she was hot and if she wasn’t going into the shade so we would cool her down, that’s all.”
The clip emerged as the state Department of Environmental Conservation said it has begun investigating complaints from Humane LI, which has accused the center of failing to get proper veterinary care for its animals to the point where several have died.
The DEC has interviewed some of the more than half dozen former center workers who reached out to Humane Long Island with concerns, the department told The Post.
The 3.5-acre refuge, which is free to the public, is licensed by DEC.
“Superintendent Losquadro told the New York Post his department ‘categorically denies’ ever spraying Honey with a hose, however, Instagram video from Holtsville Ecology Site employee Kristin Layer documents this cruel harassment as if a funny joke,” Humane Long Island President John Di Leonardo told the Brookhaven town council during a meeting Tuesday.
“I ask you today to work with us to retire the animals at Holtsville Ecology Site to reputable sanctuaries where they can live a more natural life. A highway department’s budget should be going to fixing potholes, not funding a menagerie on top of a garbage dump,” he added.
Honey suffered from broken and rotted teeth, and chronic urinary tract infections and could frequently be seen swaying back and forth in her enclosure, Humane LI has alleged.
She lost the use of the rear part of her body last month after an apparent stroke, and was euthanized Nov. 22, a center official said. Black bears can live into their 30s in captivity.
About eight animals at the center have died since July, including Wilbur, a large farm pig; Lilly, a lionhead rabbit; Patrick, a mallard duck with mobility issues; and Clarice, a white-tailed deer with kidney failure, according to Humane LI.
The group also protested at the Center on Dec. 6, as Santa Claus arrived for an annual tree lighting event an event which drew hundreds of people.