Bear spotted lounging in hammock
Just don't bring him a plate of nachos and a beer; 'a fed bear is a dead bear,' game official says
Summer in the Northern Hemisphere doesn't officially start until June 21, but last week in Florida a forward-thinking black bear got a head start on the rest of us.
Vincent James of Daytona Beach told WESH-TV he saw the bear climb into the hammock on Thursday and proceed to lounge like "a tourist or something."
According to James, this bear stayed in the hammock for about 20 minutes, relaxing and allowing a photographer to shoot several soon-to-be widely shared photos of the unlikely visitor.
Fellow residents have recently reported several sightings of black bears roaming the neighborhood, sifting through trash cans.
Officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have been warning Floridians for months not to feed the bears.
In January, wildlife law enforcement officers arrested an 81-year-old woman in Sebring, Fla., after she repeatedly refused to stop feeding bears on her property.
According to police, the woman, Mary Musselman, was feeding the bears as many as 18 bowls of dog food at a time. One bear, captured on her property in November, had to be euthanized.
"A fed bear is a dead bear," Gary Morse, a spokesman for the commission, told WFLA-TV. "You cannot relocate a bear that's become a nuisance. No matter where you put them they're going to exhibit that behavior and the behavior will become worse over time to where it may be a threat to personal safety."
