Bear Breaks into Florida Home to Eat Easter Candy
OutdoorHub Reporters 04.08.15
A bear roaming through Estero, Florida broke into a home last week not only once, but twice to gobble down some delicious Easter candy. According to NBC 2, Caroline Tidwell woke up on Friday morning after she heard the sounds of furniture being moved around. At first she thought it was her husband preparing for work, but when she got up to investigate, she found a 300- to 400-pound black bear sitting in her living room.
“He was making slobbering noises and bear noises,” Tidwell said.
Sure enough, the bear was rummaging through her bowl of Easter chocolate. The homeowners managed to scare the bear away, but the animal did not stay away for long. Instead of finding another house or going through trash bins like bears usually do, this black bear decided to return to Tidwell’s house on Saturday. The couple said that they stopped the bear from re-entering the home by banging pots and pans together. Still hungry, the bear wandered toward a neighbor’s house and attempted to break in, but was unsuccessful.
“It went boom! I heard a boom sound,” Dennis Anderson, who found signs of the attempted break-in at his house, told WXIA. “This is the first time this has happened. We’ve heard about it before, but frankly my wife was more afraid of alligators.”
As the weather gets warmer and bears venture closer to residential areas looking for food, state wildlife officials are warning residents to look out for bear activity. Florida’s bear population is on the rise, and that means an increased likelihood for encounters. A rash of bear attacks in the past two years and the general swell in population have convinced the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to bring back bear hunting later this year. A tentative harvest limit of 275 bears has been proposed.
