Bear ventures onto front porch, sniffs woman's arm

FORT WALTON BEACH — Wildlife officials plan to put a trap in a neighborhood off Hurlburt Road after a resident complained that a bear came up on her front porch and sniffed her arm.

Priscilla Brakebill was rocking on her front porch on Judson Street with her eyes closed Wednesday night when she felt something touch her arm.

“I opened my eyes to a bear sniffing me,” she said. “Thankfully I didn’t swat at him. I screamed so loud he took off running down the walkway. I kept screaming.”

Brakebill says bears have become regular visitors to the neighborhood, which includes a large, heavily wooded vacant lot.

“This is our third encounter in just over a week,” said Brakebill, who added that the bear also apparently pooped on the deck of her above-ground pool.

She added that there have been so many bear encounters in the neighborhood that folks don’t even report them all to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Stan Kirkland, public information officer for the FWC, said the agency has gotten at least nine documented complaints of bears on Brakebill’s street in recent years.

“The problem consistently on that street has been unsecured garbage,” Kirkland said. “What people want us to do is snap our fingers and make the problem go away.”

He said residents need to make sure that garbage, bird feeders and barbecue pits are not attracting the bears. However, that the bear may have touched the Brakebill’s arm is cause for greater concern.

“We don’t want that kind of interaction to ever take place,” Kirkland said. “These are powerful, wild animals. They are unpredictable. They have the power to bite people.

“We don’t want bears that comfortable around people,” he added.

Kirkland said the final disposition of the bear has not been decided, but that it could be euthanized.

That makes Brakebill sad.

“I hate that,” she said. “I hate to see anything killed.

“It shouldn’t reach this point.”