Ever seen a wild Florida bear on a tightrope? Watch the next best thing
Bear encounters are getting fairly common in Florida, but this one was just showing off.
An Okaloosa County man in Mary Ester got a shock when he looked outside to see what the rustling noise was and saw a bear peering back at him over the fence.
“We both made eye contact. I was hoping he was going to find a different route after he saw me, but decided he wasn’t,” Campbell said. “I gave him some space. Let it do its thing.”
Its thing turned out to be a balancing act as it strolled casually back and forth on top of a privacy fence at the edge of Campbell's yard in Mary Ester in Okaloosa County before jumping down and lumbering off across the street into a wooded area.
"I won't hurt, just keep going," Campbell tells the bear in the video, shot on Thursday, July 21. "Just leave me alone and I won't bug you."
Busy month for bears
There have been a number of bear sightings recently, from a "depressed" bear slumped on the side of Highway 98 in Santa Rosa Beach to a bear spotted hanging around the front door of a North Port home to a bear wandering around a Dunkin' in Fort Myers.
Florida black bears more active now
Throughout the spring and summer, bears are more likely to be active around urban areas and roadways, according to the Florida wildlife agency.
“Juvenile or yearling bears – between the ages of 1 1/2 -2 1/2 – start dispersing in spring and summer each year,” said Mike Orlando, the wildlife agency's Bear Management Program coordinator, in a news release. “The best thing people can do if they see a bear in an unexpected area is to give them plenty of space and to never approach or feed them and they will typically move along on their own.”
Younger bears are looking for new habitats this time of year, and mating season for black bears is from mid-June to mid-August, according to the U.S. Forest Service. And the number of bear-human encounters has increased. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports a 33% increase in animal nuisance calls, with nearly 6,000 bear-related calls out of a total of 14,000 calls in 2022.
If you see a bear
If you spot a bear, let your neighbors know and keep your dog inside or on a leash.
If you're having a problem with a bear, call 911 or the local FWC regional office.
If you spot an injured, orphaned or dead bear, feel threatened by a bear, or to report someone who is either harming bears or intentionally feeding them, call the FWC’s Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922).
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida black bear does balancing act on backyard fence
