Bears Ransack Vacant Home in Golden Gate Estates
By Tami Osborne, WINK News
Story Created: Feb 25, 2009 at 7:57 PM EST
Story Updated: Feb 26, 2009 at 12:19 AM EST
GOLDEN GATE ESTATES, Fla. - Bears get inside a Collier County home, and leave it a mess.
A momma bear and her two cubs lurk around a home on 16th Avenue Southeast in Golden Gate Estates Wednesday evening. They even push on garage windows, trying to find a way in.
The man who lives next door says it wouldn't be the first time. These bears were already in the house today.
"I think someone left the door open, and they naturally walked in," the man, who did not want to be identified says.
He and his daughter were on their way home, when they noticed the front door on the vacant house wide open. He called the Collier County Sheriff's Office, then went to check it out.
"I went over to look, since this house has been vacant, and looked inside, and looked like it was ransacked," he explains. "It was destroyed. All the cabinets are emptied out. There's basically flour, food, everywhere. All over the floor."
The Collier County Sheriff's Office says they did respond to a report of a possible burglary at the home today and found the bears in the yard.
"One of the Sheriff's said there was a bear inside," the neighbor tells WINK News.
The neighbors say the bears wandered off and deputies locked up the home, but the bears were back picking through trash on the side of the house again in no time.
"They're here daily," the man next door says. "We're concerned. You know, we've had them look in our windows before when we're cooking, so we leave the windows cracked, we don't leave them wide open by any means. They've lost their fear of man."
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Hopefully, they can be dissuaded from entering into populated areas through the judicious use of dogs and rubber buckshot. The other alternative is to capture and relocate them. This sometimes causes problems if the relocation area is the established territory of a boar bear. The cubs will usually be the casualties.
Regards,
Albert A Rasch
The Hunt Continues...
2 comments:
Last year we had a bear in the neighborhood bascially doing the same thing. We have some different sensibilities up here about such matters- it was tagged and relocated...to a freezer!
Hey Albert;
In Montana, we generally look at each situation on an individual basis. Sometime they're hazed away with Karelian bear dogs, pepper spray, etc. If bears become a continual problem in an area, our game wardens will sometimes eradicate. Always a shame, but this is what happens in "wildland-urban" zones; whether its deer or bears, if they are an un-hunted population coming into proximity of people, why should they be afraid of anything?
In more remote and rural areas, there are virtually no wildlife-people conflicts. Take care.
David C
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