A juvenile black bear walked into Naples Zoo on Saturday afternoon and the zoo cleared its visitors and staff out, and two days on neither the zoo nor the state has said publicly how it ended

A juvenile black bear got into Naples Zoo on Saturday afternoon, and the zoo evacuated its visitors and staff.

WINK News, which reported it, said zoo officials confirmed everyone was brought out safely. Officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission went to the site to work out how to deal with the animal. If it did not move along by itself, the agency said its bear biologists might set a trap and relocate it.

Two days later, no outcome has been made public.

What has not been said

The zoo told WINK it would provide updates as the situation unfolded. Its own public news page carries nothing about any of it. There is no statement about a bear, no notice of a closure and no notice of a reopening, and the most recent post on that page is dated 14 August, announcing summer hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. through 30 September.

That absence is worth reporting and worth not over-reading. It does not mean the bear is still on the grounds and it does not mean the bear has gone. It means the two organisations that know have not said so where the public can see it.

Why a bear turned up at all

The wildlife agency's explanation is seasonal. Young bears disperse from their mothers' ranges at this time of year and travel while looking for somewhere to settle, which is how they end up in places no bear has been before. The breeding season runs from June to August, which keeps males moving too. And autumn is when bears eat hardest, building fat reserves at something like twenty thousand calories a day for an adult.

Florida black bears generally keep away from people. What keeps one in a neighbourhood is food it can reach, and the agency's standing advice is the unglamorous kind: secure the rubbish, bring in the pet food, take down the bird seed. A bear that finds nothing moves on.