Officials say a 375-pound male black bear was seen roaming a residential neighborhood near Alligator Point, a neighborhood of about 100 homes on a small peninsula about 40 miles south of Tallahassee.
The bear was hit with a tranquilizer dart, but he managed to bolt into the Gulf of Mexico before he was sedated.
As the tranquilizer drugs took effect, biologist Adam Warwick jumped in to keep the bear from drowning because he feared the bear couldn't swim the four miles to land.
"I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I jumped in" , said biologist Adam Warwick, who saw the bear struggling in the warm Gulf waters after it had been hit with a tranquilizer dart. "It was a spur of the moment decision," he said. "I had a lot of adrenaline pumping when I saw the bear in the water."
Warwick said the bear's buoyancy made his job less difficult. "It's a lot easier to drag a bear in 4-foot water than move him on dry land," he said. Once he got the bear to shore, a bystander with a backhoe arrived and helped load the animal into the bucket and then into a FWC truck. The bear was relocated to Osceola National Forest near Lake City.
Many thanks Annemarie!
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