Bear chases kitten onto NJ car dealership lot

EAST HANOVER — It wasn't a customer or a new car that generated excitement at a Morris County car dealership on Thursday.

It was a bear. And a kitten.

Matthew Haiken, dealer principal of Prestige Volvo on Route 10 in East Hanover, said he was in his office with a floor-to-ceiling glass window and saw a bear walk into the dealership's inventory lot.

"And then it saw a little stray kitten and chased after it like he was going after lunch he hadn't hadn't had in a week," Haiken said.

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Haiken said many of the dealership's 60 employees stopped to take a look.

"Everyone was pretty freaked out," he said.

But some of the employees who come from rural areas didn't give it a second thought.

"We also have a lot of people from the city and it was definitely a rare occurrence for us," Haiken said.

Police responded right away and surrounded the dealership, he said. Agents for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection also came and took the bear away.

"Supposedly this bear had been watched for sometime. They say the bear is not dangerous but has been seen in people's backyards," Haiken said.

Haiken said that the kitten escaped the dealership.

"It didn't become anyone's lunch," he said.