USPS Publication Number 16300
T h i s C om mu n it y Ne w s p a p e r i s a p u bl i c a t ion of E s c a m b i a-S a nt a Ro s a B a r A s s o c i a t ion
Se r v i ng t he Fi r st Jud icia l Ci rcu it Section A, Page 1
Vol. 21, No. 34
V isit T he S ummation W eekly O nline : SummationWeekly.com
August 25, 2021
1 Section, 8 Pages
COEXISTING WITH THE BL ACK BEA R by Emily Echevarria
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avarre resident, Lea Shaw, was just settling into a new home with her husband when they were greeted by a surprising welcome to the area.
“We had just moved into our home that we had built in Navarre,” Shaw said. “My husband, Steve, and I were feeding the birds when Garcia arrived.” Garcia, a 450-pound Florida black bear, began visiting the Shaw’s backyard 15 years ago. They dubbed him ‘Garcia’ after the Grateful Dead singer Jerry Garcia. Shaw says that while most of her neighbors have privacy fences, her family chose an anodized aluminum fence so that they could watch the wildlife. In addition to multiple bears, they’ve spotted deer, fox, coyotes and even a bobcat in their yard. While the Gulf Coast offers a plethora of native wildlife to view and enjoy, those people who live in areas also inhabited by bears are grappling with how to coexist peacefully and safely for both human and bear residents. “Some residents are unaware that bears live in Florida, and therefore are unsure of how to react to and avoid conflicts with bears,” Florida Wildlife Commission’s Bear Management Program Coordinator David Telesco, explained. Educating the public on this subject is an ongoing and multifaceted endeavor. The Florida black bear, a subspecies of the American black bear, is the only bear species found in Florida. As the name implies, the bears are mostly black but may have tan snouts or lighter splashes of color across their chests. They have five toes on their paws and non-retractable curved claws that make them good tree climbers. Their weights range from 250 to 450 pounds for males and 125 to 250 pounds for females, though their weight can fluctuate with the seasons and larger bears have been documented. During hot summer months, male black bears are often searching for a mate while female bears spend much of this season foraging. In the summer and fall, residents may see this foraging activity move out of the woods and swamp areas and into more densely populated communities. “The main cause of humanbear conflicts is that there are a
lot of food sources for bears in neighborhoods, like unsecured garbage, pet food, bird seed, and small livestock like chickens and rabbits,” Telesco said. The Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) closely monitors and tracks data related to the bears across the state, with regional management resources specific to seven subsections, called Bear Management Units (BMU). Local areas are part of The West Panhandle BMU, which includes Escambia, Holmes, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Walton counties and contains what is known as the Eglin subpopulation of bears, named after the Eglin Air Force Base, near where most of the bears in this subpopulation reside. However, bears are lured to more populated areas like neighborhoods by the promise of an easy meal. “Between 2010 and 2020, we have received anywhere from 485 to 1,496 calls each year from people in the West Panhandle BMU. While call numbers vary across years, the proportion of those calls that identify bears getting into garbage or other attractants have actually remained the same,” Telesco said. “On average, over 30 percent of all calls received from the West Panhandle BMU specifically report that bears are accessing garbage, and another 49 percent of calls are reporting bears in yards, trees, or the general area, which typically happens when bears are seeking food in the neighborhood.” While the presence of a bear alone is not necessarily a threat to safety, Telesco says the FWC is continually working with counties, cities, homeowner’s associations, businesses, and residents to educate and support efforts to keep bear attractants secured and away from bears that are near neighborhoods. As a bear spends more time in populated neighborhoods, its chances of survival drop because it is exposed to vehicle strikes, illegal shooting, or possible attempts of trapping and removal by the FWC to protect public safety. For this reason, the main goal of bear
safety initiatives is to educate communities near bear habitats on the best ways to deter the animals from coming to the areas at all. “While the FWC receives more calls from residents living in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties than almost any other counties in the state, the actual number of bears in this area is among the lowest statewide,” Telesco said. People who live in these areas with bears nearby can take precautions like getting bear resistant hardware for trash cans and securing trash in an enclosure like a shed or garage, only pulling cans out on the morning of pickup days. Electric fencing around bird feeders or chicken coops is another recommendation, and pet food should be kept indoors, or bowls moved indoors directly after feeding. Bears may also be attracted to odors from up to a mile away, so even the scent of a recently used grill or ripe fruit can lure them. Cleaning grills and harvesting fruits ameliorate this temptation. Residents can also work with their community organizations to establish ordinances to encourage bear deterring guidelines, and the FWC also works toward that end. “We provide advice over the phone, online, and in person on the many different ways to keep bears from finding food in communities,” Telesco said. “We worked with Santa Rosa County and the City of Fort Walton Beach to pass local ordinances that require people to keep their garbage secure from bears, which further reinforces the FWC’s statewide law that makes it illegal to feed bears, whether intentionally or unintentionally.” Gulf Breeze resident, Julia Ber ry, has only recently started seeing a bear around her home, and while she hasn’t seen any aggression, the visiting animal has changed the way she and other residents in the Shoreline Park area interact with their outdoor community. She says she has sprayed her trash can with Pine Sol and peppermint to deter bears,
The FWC’s Bear Management Program held a press event at the Tallahassee Museum to demonstrate the use of bear-resistant garbage containers. May 18, 2017. photo by Tim Donovan/FWC
which has worked so far, and she takes safety precautions when going outside. “I don’t go out without a whistle, an alarm, or a blow horn around my neck,” Berry said. “I do a lot of gardening and I’m afraid if I don’t have something, I’ll turn around and there will be a bear.” Berry says she feels the conflict of living peacefully with bears whose habitat has been disrupted by development, and neighbors who want to feel safe while walking dogs or strolling with kids. Lea Shaw, the Navarre resident who became accustomed to regular visits from wild guests in her yard, attempted to work with the FWC to have the bear she called Garcia relocated after multiple encounters, but unfortunately the animal was shot and killed. Bears are protected by Florida law, and it is illegal to kill a bear without an FWC issued hunting or depredation permit unless it is to protect a human life. They were classified by the FWC as a Threatened Species from 1974 through 2012. There has been regulated bear hunting from the 1930s until 1993, and a single bear hunting season in 2015. Telesco says the FWC loans some bear deterrents like electric fencing or motionactivated water sprinklers and alarms to scare bears out of yards. Most bears can be frightened away with loud noises, and the FWC offers guidelines for safely scaring a bear. However if a bear becomes too comfortable roaming a neighborhood while humans are present or displays aggressive behavior, it may be deemed a risk to public safety, and the FWC will attempt to capture and humanely kill that bear. If people do see a bear in their
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neighborhood, they should back away slowly, keep their distance and get to a safe place. According to the FWC bears are naturally shy and studies show they avoid confrontation 90 percent of the time and bear attacks on humans are extremely rare. Black bears once roamed the entire state, and as the human population has grown and development has encroached onto previously remote areas, there has been increasing contact between humans and bears. While relocation can be a final resort, the FWC has determined that relocating bears doesn’t always work, and if the root issue of attractants is not addressed, other bears will just be drawn to the same area. For this reason, bear deterrent measures are paramount to the safety of bears and residents. “The Florida black bear is a conservation success story,” Telesco said. “Once estimated to be as low as 300 bears across just 13 percent of the state, we now have over 4,000 bears occupying almost 50 percent of the state. With both the bear and human populations continuing to increase in Florida, it is more important than ever to learn about black bears and how we can avoid conflicts with them so that this natural symbol of the wild will remain here now and for generations to come.” If you are experiencing bear encounters in your community, call the FWC Northwest Regional Office at 850-2653676 to discuss the specifics of your situation so FWC staff are aware and can determine the most appropriate actions to resolve the issue. For more information about Florida black bears, visit myFWC.com/Bear.
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