Fisherman spots large object floating off NC coast — and discovers a swimming bear
A large object seen floating Sunday in North Carolina’s Bogue Inlet turned out to be a black bear, and it was very much alive.
Robert Sawyers of Swansboro says he was out fishing with a friend when they spotted something odd in the choppy water and decided to investigate.
“When we first saw it, we thought it was a log or something floating in the water, but the closer we got, we decided it was some type of animal,” Sawyers told McClatchy News.
“My buddy thought at first it may be a wild hog, but when we passed discovered it was a bear. It was crazy. We had just run out (to) the inlet looking for bait to fish for cobia. It was really rough at that time, so we were coming back through the inlet to go to calmer waters.”
He shared photos and video on Facebook, noting: “Well, here’s something you don’t see every day.”
The sighting happened in the passage between Emerald Isle and Hammocks Beach State Park (also known as Bear Island), which is southwest of the Outer Banks. Waters off the coast were rough and prone to dangerous rip currents at the time, due to a tropical storm in the Atlantic.
The vast wetlands of Eastern North Carolina are known to host “one of the largest populations of black bears east of the Mississippi River,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Still, sightings of bears in sounds and the ocean are uncommon, compared to reports of deer, wild horses and alligators. (Rattlesnakes have also been recorded swimming in the ocean off state beaches.)
Sawyers and his fishing buddy, JP, tried and failed to get the struggling bear to “turn back toward the mainland.” He estimates it weighed about 250 pounds.
“We didn’t stick around, fearing we may be freaking it out. The conditions were pretty rough out there,” he said.
“A lot of people are wondering why we didn’t try to help, but you just don’t put a wild bear in the boat and drop it off at the island.”
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 5:38 AM with the headline "Fisherman spots large object floating off NC coast — and discovers a swimming bear."