How a bear strike affected Katrina Shadix

To Katrina Shadix, executive director of environmental and wildlife organization Bear Warriors United, the clash between development and wilderness became even more personal than she expected in the summer of 2020.

Just after midnight one clear night, she was driving home — going no more than 15 miles per hour —  from the Riverwoods community in Chuluota where she was delivering bear care packages, which include items like bear whistles, bear straps for garbage cans and educational material, when it happened. It’s a tale she has only told three people.

She was turning onto County Road 419 from the dirt-lined Riverwoods Drive when, all of a sudden, “it felt like the right side of my car went up on two wheels,” she said. “It took a few seconds for my brain to register that I just hit an animal.

“My whole car shook, and it felt like the two right wheels came up off the ground, and my brain did not put it together,” she said. “I was startled for several seconds because I did not see anything that my car hit. … It was startling and confusing and it was like a discombobulated feeling.”

With no streetlights on, it was pitch black. And she was too frightened to investigate alone.

While still in her car, she called her cousin, Jeff, who lives close by, off Lake Mills Road. Her call woke him up, and she told him to bring his gun, in case they needed to euthanize a deer or hog. She drove the quarter-mile to The Hitching Post Bar & Grill — where she previously worked, to meet him. 

Jeff investigated and found a broken headlight but saw no blood on the road or car. Just a dent and muddy water that had splashed her car’s grill, hood and windshield. This caught Shadix’s attention, because deer don’t typically go into mud. And she knew you usually would see a deer before a collision.

“Whatever hit my car, or whatever my car hit, was so low and dark, I could not see it,” she said.

She drove home with “extreme heartbreak, extreme guilt and extreme concern for wanting to help this injured animal,” she said. “I didn’t want him to go up and die a horrible, painful death.”

The next morning around 10 a.m. while taking photos for insurance purposes, she noticed hair. Black hair. Soft hair. 

“That’s when I started crying,” she said through tears at the memory. “I’m like, ‘oh my God, I hit a bear.’”

Shadix immediately contacted a friend who works at FWC. He works on the bear management team. After calming her down over the phone, he asked her to send in the hair to be analyzed to determine what exactly it was from. And then they made a deal.

“If it’s a bear, if that’s bear hair that I sent you, I don’t want to know,” she said. “Just don’t call me, don’t bring it up again, and I’ll know that it was a bear without you having to tell me and having a meltdown.

“They never called me after they received it. That was our unspoken confirmation that it was a bear that I hit,” she said.

Realizing she hit the animal she has dedicated her life to protecting was difficult to process. But it also gave her even more strength.

“It compounded everything exponentially as to why I need to keep up the fight to stop developments … that would be put right in the middle of not just bear habitat, but designated rural boundary areas,” she said.