PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Pinellas County is closing Philippe Park for the day due to a Black bear sighting in the park early Tuesday morning. The county is working with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to secure the park and citizens are encouraged to avoid the area. 

The same juvenile bear was captured on home video early Saturday morning near Curlew Road and Countryside Boulevard. Police say the bear made its way south near the Countryside Recreation Center and Misty Springs condos but was gone by the time officers arrived.

"I got closer, and he stopped and looked at me. And as I came up closer in my car, he literally jumped the fence into Sabal Springs and grabbed onto a tree there right at the fence line and was hanging in the tree," Countryside Rec. Center Manager Dave Scrivener told Spectrum Bay News 9. He says he warned a jogger who was unaware of the danger.

"I saw the jogger and I got out and I was yelling to her there's a bear up there, stop. She looked at me and I said 'no, no, there really is a bear up there' and she said, 'I was wondering why you were stopped in the middle of the street.'" 

FWC believes the bear is still somewhere inside Philippe Park and the agency is urging the public to give it some space to pass through the area on its own.

The county will provide more information on the bear as it becomes available.