A Gratitude Lesson From Bear With A Jug Stuck On Her Head 28 Days

NAPLES, FL — Here’s a story of gratitude in action spun around a hapless black bear — a real-life Winnie the Pooh who lumbered around a Florida neighborhood for 28 days with her head stuck in a plastic jug — and the brigade of people determined to rescue her.

Bears aren’t usually the wild creatures people want hanging around on their block. All the best advice is to let wild bears be wild bears. But as their habitat shrinks and the human-inhabited footprint increases, so do confrontations.

Authorities with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission think the bear was rooting around in an automatic pet feeder for some morsel of food when she became inextricably attached to it. An opening in the jar near the sow’s muzzle allowed her to eat and drink throughout what had to be a miserable, wildly inconvenient ordeal, and she was remarkably healthy when she was rescued.

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“Even after 28 days of wearing it, the bear was still in great physical shape,” the agency wrote on a social media post Monday announcing the bear was no longer running around with a jug stuck on its head.

A search that began in mid-October with a tip to the wildlife commission that a bear had gotten into a muddled mess hit one dead end after another.

“Our bear biologists, law enforcement, and bear contractors set traps and monitored the area in an effort to remove the container, but after only two sightings, the bear was not seen again for over three weeks,” the agency wrote on Facebook Monday.

Finally, the rescuers got a break. A resident of the Golden Gate Estates community in Naples saw the bear on security camera footage. One of the bear biologists darted her with a tranquilizer gun, and the plastic jug that fit tight over her face like a welding mask was removed.

“She did have a wound encircling her neck and face where the feeder was stuck, but staff cleaned the injury and treated her with antibiotics,” the wildlife agency noted in the Facebook post.

The bear remained under observation for a day and a half so wildlife officials could satisfy themselves she was healthy and able to eat and drink normally. They released her to the Picayune Strand State Forest to live with other bears and wildlife.

“A big thanks to our bear biologists, law enforcement, bear contractors, and the Collier County Sheriff's Office for making this a success,” the wildlife commission wrote in the Facebook post. “A great deal of gratitude goes out to the residents of Golden Gate Estates for working together to rescue this bear!”

Gratitude begets gratitude. It flowed like water over a cliff, gaining velocity until the comments section was electric with it.

The neighbors sympathized.

“Poor baby.”

They empathized.

“Glad the poor bear was helped. Can you imagine how that must of been for her?”

They were invested.

“I drove around myself for 3 hours trying to find her. Thank you FWC & everyone involved.”

Some shouldered a share of the blame for the bear’s dilemma.

“Too much of their prime foraging ground is being plowed over for development. The bears are hungry and becoming ‘nuisance bear’ conditioned to search for ‘food waste’ in neighborhoods.”

And this: “Pick up the trash, people.”

Their praise for the rescue brigade was effusive.

“This is wonderful news. Thank you everyone for all your help and not giving up."

“Thank you so much for all that you do and did to save this poor animal from a slow and certain death.”

“Thank you for taking such good care of this bear.”

They were thankful and grateful and filled with good will, even as they may have wished bears would stay put in the woods.

That’s one of the basic principles of practicing gratitude. It doesn’t mean things don’t go wrong, such as waking up to find a bear has strewn garbage around the subdivision. It means finding the good in the mess.

“As much as I despise them in my garbage once a week,” one person wrote, “I love these bears, and I am very happy it was saved.”

Below, watch this video from of the bear rescue and her release to the Picayune Strand State Forest.

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