Killing a black bear is a third-degree felony that could land you five years in jail and up to $5,000 in fines.
But that didn’t stop a San Carlos Park man from shooting the threatened species in the head Thursday.
The bear, which was in southwest Florida near Fort Myers, was shot when it appeared on the man’s property.
The man tells the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission the bear was not threatening people or property when he killed it.
He has been arrested for the crime.
With the continual disappearance of the bears' natural habitat, the number of sightings is increasing yearly. Three-thousand calls were reported last year in Florida alone. And three sightings have already been reported in Broward this year.
