Mark and Carol Brault, who own 114 acres of forested land in Hartland, Connecticut, operate a private nature preserve that charges admission to visitors interested in seeing bears and other wildlife. In a 2020 lawsuit, the town of Hartland accused Mark Brault of violating a local ordinance against feeding bears, a charge that he denies. The latest wrinkle in that ongoing dispute involves the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), which the Braults say has defied the Fourth Amendment by attaching a camera to a black bear that is known to frequent their property.
“Turning wildlife into unguided surveillance drones is unbearable,” Institute for Justice (I.J.) senior attorney Robert Frommer, a Fourth Amendment specialist who is not involved in this case, writes in an email. “Connecticut should paws its animal camera program so as not to infringe on Nutmeggers’ privacy and security.”
DEEP’s bear-borne camera is a twist on longstanding warrantless surveillance of private property by wildlife agents, which I.J. has challenged as a violation of state constitutional protections in Pennsylvania and Tennessee. In a complaint that the Braults filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, they argue that DEEP’s deployment of an ursine spy, identified by a state tag as Bear Number 119, violates the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.
Hellbound and Down 