A bear continues to roam through a neighborhood in Orlando, Florida,, prompting warnings from the authorities.
According to police, multiple reports came in Monday about a bear sighting in the area of Yale Street and Formosa Avenue.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has been working to safely retrieve the bear that was spotted high in a tree. Police say the bear is still strolling through College Park as of Tuesday morning.
“Although the bear is cute, please do not approach,” Orlando Police Department wrote on Twitter. “We want residents and everyone, including the bear, safe.”
Joe Miller may have been one of the first to spot the bear. It was in his own backyard. He says his dogs were the first to notice it.
“Normally, when I call them, they come in. But they were on to something,” Miller said. “All of a sudden, I see a bear scaling the tree over there.”
He said he seemed to have spooked the bear as much as the bear spooked him.
“Then you see this, you know, when he stands up, he’s probably at least five, almost six feet tall,” Miller said. “He was scaling the tree really quickly ’cause he was startled.”
Miller says the bear stayed in the tree for hours.
FWC was called in to try and trap and move it. They say this time of year, bears are more active and young bears are moving away from the area where their mothers roam, sometimes popping up in unexpected areas.
FWC left the area Monday night with no bear in their pen. But a few hours later, just a few streets away on Amherst, neighbors spotted a bear in a tree in their backyard.
Miller says it’s happened before. He had a bear in his yard about fifteen years ago. But this most recent sighting will have him doing things a little differently from now on.
“One hundred percent,” he said. “I am officially not coming back here at night because of this reason.”
A video showed the bear running through a park Monday.
FWC says seeing a bear in a neighborhood isn’t necessarily a reason to panic. But they recommend securing any food like bird seed and garbage so the bears don’t stick around in your area.
