A Black Bear Came Through Celine Emerson’s Unlocked Gate in Golden Gate Estates, Opened the Family Fridge and Spent 30 Minutes in the Front-Yard Trash

Celine Emerson’s first clue was a refrigerator door standing open. Her family’s security cameras showed the rest: a black bear had come through the unlocked gate of their home near Naples, Florida, walked around the patio, helped itself to a drink from the fridge and then spent about 30 minutes in the front-yard trash, WSVN 7News reported on Oct. 21.

No one was hurt. The visit came over the weekend of Oct. 17 and 18, in the season when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says bears eat more to build fat reserves for winter.

A gate the family leaves open at night

The Emersons live in Golden Gate Estates, a residential area near Naples, according to CubaHeadlines, which also reported on the encounter.

The family does not usually close the gate when people are coming and going at night, Emerson told WSVN. The bear walked in and made its way around the patio.

Emerson said she turned around and saw the refrigerator was open. She called to her husband to check the cameras. On Sunday morning, she found a large paw print on a countertop.

CubaHeadlines reported that the bear took a ready-to-drink alcoholic beverage from the refrigerator. Emerson’s own explanation was simple: she figured the bear was thirsty.

Six feet tall on the camera footage

The video gave the family a sense of the bear’s size. When it stood up, Emerson said, “he looked pretty tall, like 6 feet.”

From the patio, the bear moved to the front yard and the household trash. It ate from the garbage there for about 30 minutes, according to Emerson’s account to WSVN.

Her takeaway for the family was practical: “Maybe closing the gate?” CubaHeadlines reported that she plans to be more careful about locking up, especially as her granddaughter grows up.

Why Collier County bears are in yards this month

Collier County is part of the FWC’s South Bear Management Unit, home to the Big Cypress bear subpopulation. The unit covers Broward, Collier, Hendry, Lee, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties, and the agency’s 2015 estimate put its population at an average of 1,040 bears.

The same FWC page says the agency received 7,408 bear-related calls from the South unit from 2016 through 2025. Bears in garbage made up 21 percent of those calls, second only to general sightings and interactions at 50 percent.

Fall makes those encounters more likely. In a fall BearWise release, the FWC said bears eat more in the fall to build fat reserves for winter, even in Florida, and that an adult bear may need up to 20,000 calories a day. Unsecured garbage, pet food and bird seed are among the easiest meals a bear can find.

What Florida asks homeowners to lock up

The FWC’s Living with Bears guidance starts with the trash can. The agency says household garbage should be kept in a shed, a garage or a wildlife-resistant container, and put out on the morning of pickup rather than the night before.

The same guidance tells homeowners to feed pets indoors or bring dishes in after feeding, remove wildlife feeders or make them bear-resistant, and pick ripe fruit and clear fallen fruit from the ground. For yards with vegetable gardens, beehives, compost or livestock, the FWC recommends electric fencing. The agency also warns that anything that attracts dogs, cats or raccoons will attract bears.

In its fall release, the FWC added that grills and smokers should be cleaned and degreased after each use and, if they are mobile, stored in a secure shed or garage.

Those steps line up with the six basics promoted by BearWise, the education program founded and funded by state wildlife agencies: never feed or approach bears, secure food, garbage and recycling, remove bird feeders when bears are active, never leave pet food outdoors, clean and store grills, and alert neighbors to bear activity.

When a bear is already in the yard

If a bear shows up, the FWC says to make sure people are in a safe place and the bear has a clear escape route. From that safe spot, loud noise such as yelling, banging pots and pans or an air horn can scare it off. Once the bear is gone, the agency says to check the yard for whatever drew it in and secure it.

Dogs are a particular concern in a yard a bear has visited. In its fall release, the FWC said 60 percent of incidents in which bears injured people in Florida involved dogs. The agency advises keeping dogs close, preferably on a non-retractable leash, and, before letting a dog out at night, flipping the lights on and off and banging on the door so any bear nearby has a chance to leave.

For ongoing conflicts with a bear, the FWC asks residents to call the nearest of its five regional offices.

Florida law also puts the responsibility on homeowners. The FWC states that it is illegal to intentionally place food or garbage out that attracts bears. Suspected feeding can be reported to the agency’s Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922.

Bears raiding trash have turned into bigger trouble elsewhere this fall, including in Index, Washington, where a woman was attacked in her backyard and wildlife police later killed two bears that had been getting into garbage in town. For the Emersons, the fix may be as simple as a latch on the gate.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: DanTD – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons