GUILDERLAND — A bear was spotted in the village of Altamont on Wednesday, in the area of Western Avenue and Dunnsville Road, Lieutenant Eric Batchelder of the Guilderland Police said.

The day before, the Guilderland Police had reported, through its email alert system, that several residents had reported seeing a bear, moving through yards on West Lydius Street and in the area of the intersection of Fuller Station and Carman roads.

Lynnwood Elementary School, located about two miles away, near the other end of Fuller Station Road, kept children inside Tuesday for gym classes and recess, “out of an abundance of caution,” said an email alert that the school district sent home to parents.

Larry Bifaro, a wildlife biologist with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, said, referring to black bears in the Capital District, “In that area, we get some urban travelers on occasion. Some years, we get virtually no reports, and other years we might get two or three.”

Bifaro, who is in Delaware County, said that he would not expect a bear to remain in a suburban area for long. “They tend to pass through,” he said, and are generally not interested in making a home or staying for long in an urban or suburban environment.

If a bear should wander deep into a city or suburb and feel trapped, Bifaro said, it would most likely climb a tree to wait until dark before trying to continue on its way. If there were a lot of crowds and commotion around the bear, it would tend to stay in the relative shelter of the tree, he said, until “somebody goes and fetches it.”

A bear that was sighted in Bethlehem and then in Albany in 2014 was tranquilized and then euthanized by the DEC, after it was located in a residential neighborhood.

“We would only euthanize if it was injured in some way or we felt that there was something particularly wrong with it,” said Bifaro.

“Typically,” he continued, “these urban bears are simply lost in an urban environment, and our policy is, if we did tranquilize it, to remove it to a more favorable habitat.”

The DEC estimates that New York State has a minimum of 6,000 to 8,000 bears in areas open to hunting, with roughly half of them in the Adirondacks and roughly a third in the Catskills. They are omnivorous and remain dormant for up to five months in the winter.

The DEC is currently looking for “citizen scientists” to record observations of bears or bear signs like scat, tracks, hair, and markings; details are available on the DEC website.

Deputy Chief Curtis Cox of the Guilderland Police said that, if residents see a bear, they should call the police on the department’s non-emergency line: (518) 356-1501.

Cox said that the police would send over an officer to check for the bear, but that that officer would not shoot the animal. The Guilderland Police would, Cox said, call the DEC and follow that agency’s lead.

For now, Cox said, residents are advised to bring in their bird feeders and secure their garbage cans.

What’s unusual in this case, Bifaro said, is the sighting.

“Chances are,” he said, “there are some that are passing through without us ever noticing that they’ve been there.”

Updated Oct. 11, 2017: The bear was seen in the village of Altamont Wednesday. Also a different telephone number was added for calling police about bear sightings.