Diane Valden in The Columbia Paper tracks how bear hunting in Columbia County went in its first season. She reports ten black bears were legally shot in Columbia County during the hunting season this past fall. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) allowed Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Columbia, Rensselaer and Washington counties, and the portion of Rockland that was not already open for black bear hunting. Bear hunting has been allowed west of the Hudson, including Greene County, for some time. Valden's story also tracks 64-year-old grandmother Dona Whiteman, who shot one of the ten with a muzzleloader, a 400-pounder shot in the Town of Claverack in Hollowville. She was watching a doe from up in a tree when a black bear emerged from the woods. "She took about 10 seconds to make sure her shot would hit a vital organ toward the front of the bear and pulled back the trigger," Valden writes. "The bear fell, then ran and was done in 50 feet, she said. She sat in the tree for another hour or so, still waiting in hopes of getting a shot at a doe." Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.