Black bear raids Collier County home, steals dog food from front yard

COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)—A Collier County woman came face-to-face with a giant black bear munching on dog food in her front yard.

Kathryn O'Brien heard a noise outside her eastern Collier County home and expected to find raccoons. Instead, she found a black bear in her driveway.

"I freaked out, and I seriously just ran to the door," O'Brien said.

Her heart raced as she made it safely inside with her dog Daisy. "My heart was seriously just going 100 miles an hour. I was terrified, I mean, I knew I was safe, but when I was running, I didn't know if he was literally right behind me, but he, yeah, he took off, I guess," she said.

The bear had knocked over a storage chest in her front yard and dragged out a bag of dog food. The bag now has holes and claw marks from the bear's feast.

"I've seen raccoons before, so I'm like, oh, it's maybe it's the whole family," O'Brien said. "I got my camera out, and I'm like, 'Oh, oh, that's not a raccoon, it's a bear.' And then I freaked out."

The mother of three and Daisy made it inside safely. Daisy's dog food did not.

O'Brien's mother, Rose O'Brien, explained they store dog food and detergents in the chest outside. The bear opened it, knocked it over and took the food.

The dog food is now staying inside.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) says bears are naturally drawn to neighborhoods when they smell food, and their sense of smell can detect odors from more than a mile away. The calories a bear can get from a single garbage can often surpass what it would find foraging for an entire day, making unsecured trash one of the biggest attractants.

O'Brien sees the encounter as a lesson learned in sharing the land with wildlife. "Just stay safe and try not to leave anything outside, any food. Just, if you think something's out there, set off your car alarm a few times, like the beep, just so it spooks them away," she said.

O'Brien can't help but wonder if the unexpected visitor was a sign from her dad, Edward O'Brien. "His name was Bear, big old biker Bear. He's just, you know, he was my everything, and I got this for him, and I just go, 'Man, I hope that wasn't you messing with me, because that wasn't funny, Dad,'" she said.

If the bear was a message, O'Brien has one right back at her dad. "I love you, I miss you, but enough with the bear stuff. You got me good. Like, we're done. We're done with that," she said

FWC says residents can take simple steps to avoid conflicts, including securing garbage in bear-resistant containers, putting trash out on the morning of pickup rather than the night before, feeding pets indoors, cleaning grills and storing them in a locked place and protecting gardens and livestock with electric fencing.

If a bear does enter your yard, FWC says to make sure you are in a safe spot, give the bear a clear escape route and then scare it off with loud noises like yelling, banging pots and pans or using an air horn.