LAKE MARY, Florida (KRON) — A Florida woman recently came face-to-face with a bear, and she managed to record the encounter on her cellphone.
“I look up and there was this huge black bear,” Teliece Sander said. “At this point, he was so close to me. I was afraid to move.”
This bear is so close that’s Sander’s knee is in the video.
“He was that close, I felt his breath, he was this, he was a foot away from me, when it came from my face to his face,” Sander said.
She first snapped a photo and sent it to her son upstairs, saying, “Help me.”
“I thought she was messing with me,” son Colton said. “I thought she got a new app or something.”
But when she followed with, “Don’t make a lot of noise,” he quietly slipped in behind his mom.
Whether it was a second person, the bear did walk slowly away.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission got the call and saw the video and were on scene by the afternoon.
Because the bear seems to have so little fear of humans, that’s why the FWC feels it has been fed in some form or fashion.
That is why they came in with a trap to remove the bear.
“That type of behavior is extremely concerning to us, and we consider the bear a public safety threat,” FWC spokesman Mike Orlando said.
Despite having such a large animal so close, she stayed as still as she could, feeling startling the 300-pound male would create more issues.
“Anything could have happened, it’s wildlife, anything could have happened, so yea, I do feel very fortunate,” Sander said.
The FWC said it hopes to trap it and move it out of the area for safety’s sake.