Young black bear may have caused syrup line damage at farm in Portland

PORTLAND, CT (WFSB) - Damaged syrup lines at a farm in Portland may have been caused by a young black bear, according to police.

The maple syrup lines at Penfield Farms were badly damaged, and its owners initially thought it was a case of vandalism because of how extensive the damage was.

When workers at the farm went to check on their maple lines earlier this week, they discovered 150 of their tubes had been cut.

“It goes into a tap of a tree. This is very hard plastic. They destroyed these in many areas,” said Henry Colangelo of Penfield Farms.

Colangelo thought it was the work of vandals.

“The first night, I didn’t sleep because you take it personally. This was bad. This was tough,” he said.

Someone, or as police now think, some thing, had slashed the maple tree lines.

Henry thought because of how the edges were cut that it may have been done with a professional tool.

“The amount of labor that went into this to set this up is weeks’ worth of labor, and then for someone to come here and spend hours to destroy it for really no reason at all? Just an act of destruction,” he said.

Colangelo said the cost of repairs is about 3 years’ worth of syrup profits.

As they work to get the farm back to its peaceful state in time for tapping season, the farm workers said they were thankful for all the people in Portland reached out to help.

“The outpouring of support has really been fantastic. This is a great town,” said Victoria Robinson, farm manager.

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