A Florida woman was attacked by a giant black bear in her driveway while walking her dog last week. She suffered a major laceration on her face in the attack. The woman, identified as Aydee, encountered a black bear mother around 9 pm last Thursday in Debary. When Aydee tried to flee at the sight of the bear, it followed, clawing at her.
"When I realized it, she [the bear] got me here," Aydee told FOX35, pointing to the laceration on the side of her face. Aydee noted that she took off running, and the bear followed, running behind her. "I was screaming and going to my neighbors to see if he can call 911 or help me or take out a gun," she said.
Aydee's neighbor, Awston Kennedy said that when he heard the loud pounding on his door by her, he sprung into action. Aydee, at the time, seemed concerned about the safety of her dog. Kennedy noted that the bear was seen up in a tree in front of his house.
The bear was euthanized
The bear came down the tree and strewed some trash. When neighbors tried to shoo her away, it went behind Ayedee instead. After the attack on Aydee, the bear along with her cubs was scared away into the woods by the neighbors by the time authorities arrived.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Volusia County Sheriff's Office responded to the call and found the bear and its three 1-year-old cubs sitting up in a tree, the FWC noted in a press release. Biologists from FWC euthanized the bear with a tranquilizer. The cubs weighed about 100 pounds each and were old enough and big enough to survive on their own.
"I'm an animal lover too, but those are not my friends. She was trespassing at my house. I was not in her territory. Two more years and we will be in the same boat," Aydee told Fox 35.
Other neighbors, however, were 'not very happy' with the decision to kill the mother bear. It lived in the area for seven or eight years and had never been a threat before.
