Florida Bear Eats 20 Pounds of Dog Chow, Falls into Food Coma in Backyard
OutdoorHub Reporters 07.21.15
What do you do if a massive black bear breaks into your garage, steals your dog food, and then takes a nap on your lawn? If you live next to a professional wildlife trapper, the answer should be obvious.
Bob Cross, a retired 72-year-old firefighter who now owns a critter removal service in Lake Mary, Florida, says he gets these calls like that the time. However, when his next-door neighbor called him over on Saturday to deal with an estimated 500-pound black bear, he knew he was going to have to sit this one out.
“That’s a big bear. That’s a huge bear,” he told WFTV.
Cross’s specialty is removing snakes, but he’s also dealt with various other critters. A 500-pound black bear was not something he’s dealt with before. Fortunately, the animal seemed to be pretty calm.
The bear was laying on the lawn munching on a 20-pound bag of dog food it had just taken from his neighbor’s garage. Wisely deciding against getting closer to the bear, Cross whipped out a camera and kept an eye on the bear for half an hour as it lazily chowed down on dog food. The wildlife trapper expected that the bear would leave soon, but instead the bear decided to stick around.
“It laid all the way down and the thing just rolled right over. I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Cross told ABC News.
Sure enough, the bear napped for an hour and a half in the sun before it woke up and drowsily returned to the forest.
You can see pictures of it below:
Cross’s neighbor, Art Fischer, said he will now be keeping his dog food locked up. Despite the break-in, Fischer said that he holds no ill will toward the bear and even wishes it luck during the upcoming bear hunting season, which begins on October 24. The season will be Florida’s first bear hunt in 21 years.
