SANTA ROSA BEACH — The mascot at Butler Elementary School has come to life in the form of a juvenile black bear with a taste for dumpster diving that students can’t stopping talking about.
The bear was first spotted at the school Sept. 10. In the days that followed, the school worked with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to make its grounds a little less inviting.
“It was scary, but it was exciting, too,” Principal Tammy Smith said. “We don’t train for this.”
How do you safeguard your family and property from bears? >>
A group of third-graders were outside for P.E. class when a coach spotted the bear walking away from the large trash bin next to the basketball court, she said.
Students were ushered inside and the bus and parent pickup routines were altered while school officials figured out how to handle the interloper.
“It was a real sense of accomplishment when it was all over,” Smith said of that first day. “But then it was, ‘Where do we go from
here?’ ”
The school started by moving the dumpster farther away and bear-proofing it as much as possible until metal dumpsters arrived.
The bear returned last Wednesday and Thursday to rummage through the school’s garbage. But since the bear-proofing was finished last Friday, no evidence of a bear has appeared.
“I have to commend you guys for being pretty quick about it,” FWC Wildlife Biologist Justin Davis told Smith when he visited Butler Elementary on Tuesday. “You’re taking all the right steps.”
Teachers have discussed bears with the students and the FWC brought coloring books for the children and brochures for parents. Educational emails also should go out to parents soon.
Students were still asking questions about the bear this week, but operations, including the pickup and drop-off routes, have returned to normal as school officials have taken every opportunity to apply their new knowledge.
“It has been a great experience,” Smith said. “We have learned a lot.”
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Be the bear: The key to keeping foragers away is to make neighborhoods unpleasant, FWC biologist says
SANTA ROSA BEACH — A week after a bear snarled the afternoon pickup at Butler Elementary School, he’s still turning heads in the area.
Justin Davis, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, spotted the bear Tuesday morning in a neighborhood about a mile from the school after receiving numerous calls about it.
But it will not be captured and removed.
“We don’t just relocate them,” Davis said. “The main thing is, it’s not solving the problem; it’s just moving the problem.”
With development and the ever-dwindling woodlands in the Panhandle, encounters between bears and people have become more common.
Davis said the key to breaking bears’ garbage-foraging habits is to make the experience unpleasant. Quietly taking photos will not discourage a bear from staying or returning.
Instead, people should take the role of a dominant bear to force the intruder to move along.
When Davis spotted the bear, he showed the 150-or-so-pound juvenile that it wasn’t welcome by clapping his hands and yelling at it loudly.
“I think we can really use this experience (at the school) … to really disseminate information,” Davis said.
Black bears typically shy away from humans and never have attacked anyone in Florida. Still, it’s important to respect them and encourage them to forage for food in the forest rather look for garbage cans.
“We don’t want people to be sacred of them. We just want folks to have a healthy respect for them,” Davis said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.