Florida Residents Cause Bear To Be Killed

In a subdivision of Orlando, Florida where it is reported that some residents had been feeding a bear, police, under the direction of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, ended up killing a bear after it was Tasered twice. This is another one of those cases where it ends up being a lose - lose situation for authorities.

We all hear stories everyday of bears coming into neighborhoods looking for food. More times than not garbage cans are their target as they put off some pretty attractive aromas for a bear. If people don’t properly care for their garbage, they can have unwanted visitors, not just bears.

We also know that often times people move into the suburbs and do what they can to draw wildlife into their back yards, even to the point of putting out food for the animals. According to one report in the Orlando Sentinel, someone in the Tivoli Woods neighborhood was feeding this particular bear.

When the bear appeared in the area on Tuesday, some frightened neighbors called 911. Orlando police responded and followed the instructions of the FFWCC in dealing with the bear. Once again, according to this report in the Orlando Sentinel, this is how officers dealt with the bear.

Residents in the 4700 block of Walnut Ridge Drive complicated efforts to shoo away the bear by refusing police requests to go inside their homes.

“We also observed dozens of citizens standing on their front lawns taking pictures of the animal,” wrote Officer Frank Sikos of broadcasting pleas over his patrol car’s public address system to avoid the bear. “Many of the residents did not comply.”

For 45 minutes, police followed the bear blaring sirens and flashing emergency lights as it wandered house to house along Walnut Ridge Drive, Oak Crest Road, Tarflower Lane and Spindletree Lane.

When the bear returned to Walnut Ridge Drive, it walked into an open garage where residents Jennielyn Rodrigues, Sovet Navarez, William Hodge and Gary Navarez were sitting at a table.

“All four began screaming as the bear charged at them,” the report states. “Hodge threw a chair at the bear as (they) attempted to enter their home.”

One of the police officers got ready to use his shotgun to shoot the bear but feared hitting the people. The bear wandered outside again, where police officers tried to encourage it to escape harm by heading into nearby woods.

“The bear did not comply and instead turned toward us,” Sikos wrote. “The bear was more interested in entering the garbage cans around the homes than avoiding the officers on the scene.”

The animal came within a car length of Sikos and took two more strides despite his efforts to scare it away.

“I did not want to use deadly force on the animal,” he wrote. “I deployed my department-issued Taser, striking the bear in the torso.”

The 50,000 volts of electricity slowed the bear long enough for officers to lasso one leg and its neck with animal-catch poles. That didn’t do much other than upset it.

“The bear became agitated and we moved from yard to yard as the bear tired. However, the bear had spurts of energy,” Sikos wrote of being pulled around the neighborhood.

Another officer zapped the animal a second time with a Taser and a second leg was harnessed with a catch pole, according to reports.

“We again moved from yard to yard as the bear wrestled with us,” Sikos wrote. “We then observed the bear appeared to have passed out. A short time later, we determined the animal had passed away.”

It certainly appears to me that these officers did everything in their power to avoid killing the bear. In all honesty, I think in most cases the bear would have been dispatched much sooner than as happened in this case. The efforts of the Orlando police and the instructions of FFWCC should be commended but instead many of the same residents who refused to go inside as instructed by police, are complaining that the bear didn’t have to be killed. Their ignorance and uncooperative attitudes actually contributed to bear’s death.

The officers went out of their way to avoid having to kill the bear. Even when they Tasered the bear for the second time, that ended up killing the bear, it was still not their intention to cause death.

The job of the Orlando police department is to protect the citizens of the Tivoli Woods. Had the people gone inside and stayed there, the police could have observed the bear until it returned to the woods. Police Sgt. Jones tells reporters the same thing.

“We couldn’t leave until the people went inside and the bear went into the woods. As long as the people remained there we had to treat the bear as a threat,” she said. “Everybody loves animals and they’re cute, but they’re not cute if they maul somebody.”

If you don’t want to see a bear killed needlessly, as some would say this one was, then take care of your garbage and when authorities do show up in your neighborhood to respond to a bear encounter, cooperate with them and perhaps you can save the life of bear.

Tom Remington