Dec. 04–A Longwood-area woman was attacked by a bear in what Florida wildlife officials are calling the most serious attack they have seen in documented state history.
A bear mauled 54-year-old Susan Chalfant as she walked her two small dogs on English Ivy Court in the Wingfield North subdivision Monday night. A man who called 911 to report the attack described her as covered in blood and “moaning in tremendous pain.”
A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer told the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday that Chalfant was unconscious when emergency officials arrived to take her to the hospital Monday night.
The neighborhood is within the most notorious area in the state for complaints about bear-human contact. In interviews last month, residents there said that they had seen more, bolder bears in the last year or two.
For the 32779 ZIP code, which covers the Wingfield North subdivision in Longwood, there had been 1,168 bear-nuisance reports filed with the state since the start of 2008.
On Nov. 8, Wingfield North resident Paul Ziccardi reported that a bear attacked and killed his terrier Emma in his yard.
He said Tuesday that it was one of several recent frightening bear incidents — all within a block or so — before Monday’s attack on Chalfant.
“We don’t feel comfortable leaving the house,” said Ziccardi, 39. “We don’t at all anymore after dusk.”
FWC spokeswoman Karen Parker said Tuesday that the agency’s top priority now is trapping the bear — and making sure through DNA testing that it’s the same one that Chalfant encountered.
If there’s a match, and the bear caused grave injuries, it would likely be euthanized, Parker said. But that would be up to wildlife officials in Tallahassee, she said.
“The problem is if we move one bear, another bear is going to come in and take its place,” Parker said. “There are a lot of attractants in this area, a lot of acorns on the ground” and trash in cans.
Parker said FWC officials are “not ready to call it a predatory attack yet.”
The overwhelming number of black-bear attacks, including those by Florida black bears, are defensive and not predatory in nature, said John Beecham, a research biologist who serves as chairman of the human-bear-conflict team with the nonprofit International Association for Bear Research.
“A bear may attack if startled or surprised because it feels threatened,” Beecham said, adding that the encounters often involve the bear’s cubs or food.
And frequently, they involve dogs.
“They are mortal enemies, and [bears] will defend themselves,” he said.
‘Very active’ bears
Sara Sampatch Kumar, a resident on Vista Oak Drive in Wingfield North, said she’s had five encounters with bears since she moved into her home in 1994 — three of them in 2012.
Kumar said she and her neighbors have complained to wildlife officials many times about bears breaking into their homes to steal food from kitchens or garbage bins.
In March 2011, Kumar said she called FWC when a bear tried to drag the entire freezer out of her garage. She also called animal control, but officials there told her that if the bear doesn’t hurt anyone, there’s not much they could do.
“You’re going to wait until someone gets killed or hurt,” Kumar said.
Bear researcher Hank Hristienko and Stephen Herrero, a professor and author of “Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance,” analyzed 92 bear attacks during the past four years in the U.S. and Canada and found an unleashed dog was present in more than half the encounters.
“We don’t have all the details to conclude dogs trigger [the attacks],” Herrero said. “But dogs can excite and provoke bears to the point where a bear attacks not only the dog but the person accompanying the dog as well. Quite a number of dogs were killed.”
Ziccardi, who lives on Vista Oak Drive near English Ivy, said that, on the evening of Nov. 8, he had gone outside into his lanai, and his 5-year-old, 3-pound terrier dashed out of the house and around the corner.
“I heard a loud bang and a yelp. At that point I knew there was something like a bear,” he said. He went inside, grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and opened the garage door.
A 400-pound bear was standing in his driveway.
“It was not scared of me, that’s a definite,” Ziccardi said.
Not 1st bear attack
Sometimes, bears are aggressive with people who try to feed them or get too close.
The first documented unprovoked bear attack in FWC’s history was recorded in March 2012 when Terri Gurley of Seminole County was bitten by a female bear as she, too, walked her dog one morning.
There was some question at the time whether Gurley’s dog could have provoked the 300-pound bear, whose cub was nearby. FWC captured and euthanized the mother bear several days after the attack.
The attack on Chalfant happened near Markham Woods Road, south of Heathrow and about a mile east of the Wekiva River Buffer Conservation Area — an area known for frequent bear sightings.
Parker, the FWC spokeswoman, said Chalfant’s family members said she was walking her two small dogs — 5 and 8 pounds, respectively, one a West Highland white terrier –when both dogs became agitated.
Chalfant turned around to walk back toward her house but didn’t see the bear until it knocked her down, family members told FWC officials.
Chalfant ran to a neighbor’s house and was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center. Authorities have not released an update on her condition.
Chalfant’s neighbor, who identified himself only as Richard, said Tuesday that the barks of distressed dogs and the sound of a faint voice made him rush outside late Monday, where he found Chalfant silhouetted by a neighbor’s porch light. He comforted her while others called 911.
“Her primary concern was her dogs,” Richard said, adding he found Chalfant’s pets and made sure they were safe.
Three traps containing glazed doughnuts were brought in Tuesday by FWC officials and placed where the bear was last seen. FWC officials said they would be monitored regularly.
Parker said that, because it’s fall, bears are a lot more active because they are trying to “fatten up” for winter.
“They are going from eating 5,000 calories a day,” she said, “to 20,000 calories a day.”
Staff writers Tiffany Walden and Jeff Weiner contributed to this report. [email protected] or 407-420-5471. [email protected] or 407-650-6361. [email protected] or 407-420-5441.