JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE FWC WAS GETTING SMARTER PALATKA -- A noise in the night Wednesday at the rural home of Crystal and Hector Mendoza turned out to be a 500-pound Florida black bear. That made the fifth night the bear had shown up at the couple's house, and by Thursday, Crystal Mendoza was fed up.
The bear in her yard was the second one sighted in three weeks in Putnam County, and officials say it is part of a group of bears moved from Longwood in Central Florida to the Ocala National Forest.
Recently, at least one bear was sighted near Crescent Beach in St. Johns County, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Mendoza said Thursday she was concerned FWC officials were not taking seriously her complaints about the bear at her Old Lundy Dirt Road home.
"It's not their house. It's not their 4-year-old. It's not their wife," Mendoza said Thursday morning, sitting in the back yard of her house just past the city limits and on the edge of a heavily wooded area. She was bleary from lack of sleep, and her 4-year-old son was still asleep inside. She's also less than a week away from her delivery date for the baby girl she and her husband plan to name Alexa.
If a bear is in your yard
[*]Do not feed or approach the bear.
[*]Make sure the bear has an escape route.
[*]Do not run.
[*]If it climbs a tree, leave the bear alone. It will climb down after dark.
The following items attract bears: garbage cans, bird feeders, pet food, barbecue grills, small livestock, compost piles, fruit and nut-bearing trees. For information about how to bear-proof your trash can or wildlife feeders, go to www.wildflorida.org/bear .
Black bear information
[*]When a bear stands on its hind legs, it is merely trying to get a better view, rather than acting in a threatening way.
[*]A bear may huff, snap its jaw and swat the ground to let you know that you are too close.
[*]Contrary to popular belief, female black bears typically do no aggressively defend their cubs against humans.
[*]They are generally not aggressive, but are powerful and could seriously injure a human with a swat of a paw.
[*]Black bears will sometimes "bluff charge" when they are cornered, feel threatened or are trying to steal food. Stand your ground and then slowly back away.
[*]Black bears are the only type of bear native to Florida.
[*]Adults generally weigh between 150 and 400 pounds.
[*]Breeding season is from June to August, and cubs are born in late January or early February.
Source: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
The bear has been on the couple's screened back porch, tearing away sections of screens to get to dog food kept there and getting into the trash in the yard.
Her complaints resulted in officials from FWC and a University of Florida student studying nuisance bears coming to Putnam Thursday. The bears are part of a group of about 30 that have been fitted with red radio collars and are being studied.
"She (Crystal Mendoza) was very frightened, understandably and wanting to know what they could do to eliminate the bear from coming there," said Lt. Joy Hill with the FWC. "Basically we told her the only way to really completely eliminate it was to put up an electric fence. She said they would."
No black bears have aggressively attacked Florida residents, she said.
"We're not ignoring, we're monitoring the bears. We know what their movements are. None of these bears have ever shown aggression," she said, adding when bears become nuisances the FWC tries to find a way to take away the food sources they are after.
The Mendoza family's problems began Saturday night during a family party with relatives who had come from Mississippi. The dog wouldn't stop barking and Mendoza's sister looked out the window. She saw what she first thought was a man in the back yard. It turned out to be the bear.
Mendoza said she couldn't believe the bear came up to the house. "We were having fun, watching our movies and making a lot of noise."
This isn't the first bear sighting in the area. Brenda Ziegler, a longtime resident of the area, said one neighbor told her a bear had been eating the citrus fruit off his trees before he could pick it. Another has reported seeing bears in the area, particularly last spring. "They were walking through the neighborhood," said Ziegler, adding she and others have learned to keep food out of the bears' way.
This bear, which made it to Putnam by following the St. Johns River, is one of several removed from subdivisions in the Longwood area recently after becoming nuisances. "The subdivisions were on the edge of Wekiva State Forest, and the bears were being welcomed into the community by residents," said Hill, adding people first see the bears as big, furry, friendly animals and, later, "they're big, great nuisance raccoons, and they want them gone."
On Jan. 28, another bear from the group was spotted several times in an area west of Palatka around Kelley Smith Elementary School. He also wandered through the back yard of Putnam County Sheriff Dean Kelly.
"We had several reports of the bear, and one of them came directly from a neighbor," said Kelly Thursday, adding he later found tracks in his yard. The bear got into the garbage of his neighbor and cleaned out the man's bird feeder. "I said, 'Are you sure it wasn't a big raccoon?' and he said only if the raccoon was six feet tall," said Kelly.
The bear, which weighs between 200-250 pounds, came from the forest, swimming across the Florida Barge Canal and wandering up to an area north of Georgia-Pacific.
A female black bear that is also part of the study was first spotted in Flagler Estates and has since moved north. It was last seen near State Road 206 and State Road A1A, near Crescent Beach, Hill said. That bear broke open a few garbage bags, but has not caused any other damage.
"Bears are like giant raccoons," Hill said about their attraction to garbage and pet food. "Anything that they can eat, they will."
It is illegal to hunt a black bear, said Kelly. "This is Northeast Florida, and bears are a part of being in a rural community," he said, adding people should call law enforcement if they have a problem.
Mendoza thinks people need to be warned about the bears and that they can't be hunted before they move to the state. "You'd probably have a lot less people coming to Florida," she said.
Staff Writer Lory Pounder contributed to this report.
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bears in fl
The bear climbed the palmup to his stand and was trying to knock it off the palm with him in it! You see, bears climb the palms to eat the palm berries. Just a reminder, don't climb palm trees while deer hunting.
