02/02/2024

Kodiak Bear Cubs Discovered in Florida

They were found thousands of miles away from their native home

Two Kodiak bear cubs, a unique subspecies of the brown bear, were found in a rural area of the Florida Panhandle thousands of miles away from their native home, authorities said.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office shared a video on social media Wednesday of their encounter with the friendly cubs, who appeared to try and play with a responding deputy. Around 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 5, 2023, the sheriff's office received a call from a man who had spotted the pair of cubs and said: "They didn’t appear to be our common northwest Florida black bears."

The cubs had been roaming around on a road in a rural area in north Okaloosa County, about 50 miles northeast of Pensacola and over 160 miles west of Tallahassee, Florida. The responding deputy's body-camera footage showed the cubs playfully following the man who reported them and the deputy along with trying to climb into her patrol vehicle.

Please select this link to read the complete article from USA Today.