Weird places bears were spotted in Florida: Disney World, the beach, drinking White Claws – The Palm Beach Post

Bear sightings are stirring safety concerns in Florida. And the bear sightings that have been caught on film stirred Floridians on social media several times this year already.
Here’s a roundup of the most viral Florida bear sightings to hit the internet within the last year or so, from a bear on the beach, to a three-legged bear sipping White Claws.
Yes. Last week, the happiest place on earth got a visit from a bear that isn’t animated and doesn’t sing songs. On Monday, September 18, guests of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom reported seeing a black bear in a tree and the park temporarily closed Frontierland, Liberty Square and Adventureland for part of the afternoon.
The FWC captured the adult female Florida black bear and relocated her to an area near the Ocala National Forest. 
In June, beachgoers in Destin, Florida were joined by an unusual sunbather. A Florida black bear took a swim in the Gulf of Mexico before onlookers spooked the bear. It then ran from the water, up the beach and over the dunes near a condo building.
You can find bears anywhere in Florida, although they are more prevalent in north and west Florida, according to the FWC’s website and bear map. Since Naples is in Florida, its residents are not excluded from the possibility of a visit from a Florida black bear.
And over the last few months, Naples residents saw an uptick in the number of bears that made their way into town. In June, a bear was spotted pacing in front of the entrance to a Publix store in Naples. Just last week, a black bear helped itself to a pint of boba ice cream in a Naples family’s garage freezer. 
Around a year before a bear tried to shop at a Naples Publix, in June 2022, residents in a gated community near Naples who were having a Father’s Day barbecue spotted a black bear sniffing around backyards of the golf course community.
Yes. Just when you thought the state couldn’t get anymore, well, Florida, a three-legged black bear broke into the patio mini fridge of an Orlando family and downed a few White Claw hard seltzers.
The bear, who locals of the Orlando suburb Lake Mary call “Tripod,” was caught on camera by a 13-year-old boy home alone with the family dog this Labor Day weekend. He watched the bear from the window, behind locked doors, as he washed down a snack of fish food with about three White Claws and then left.
Florida’s black bears are most active in the spring and early summer when they’re breeding and in the fall, right before they hibernate. That means, if there were an official “bear season” September would be in that second peak of activity. And Disney World guests and Sheriff Smith in Franklin County would probably agree.
“The bear problem is epidemic in all these rural counties. I mean, you got a bear at Disney World so you probably got bears everywhere,” Smith told USA TODAY. He said that his office has gotten more than 40 calls about bears within the last year.
According to the FWC, the Florida black bear is a subspecies of the American black bear and it is the only kind of bear that lives in Florida. 
“While other subspecies of the American black bear can have different coat colors from black to blonde to cinnamon, Florida black bears are black furred,” the FWC’s website says.

source