Elderly bear blasted with high-pressure hose at LI animal refuge riddled with abuse allegations, video shows

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 veter...