While driving along the back roads of Real County on Saturday evening, a Texas woman found herself colliding into a wildly unexpected roadblock: a black bear prowling the highway.

Luckily, personnel with the Divide Volunteer Fire Department trailed shortly behind the woman and were able to respond to the incident and confirm zero injuries — (well, except for the black bear, which died approximately 30 yards away from where the vehicle struck it on Highway 83, just west of Kerrville).

As the black bear population steadily rebounds in Texas, the local game warden recovered the specimen, which Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will study.

Where are black bears found in Texas?

Black bears are the only native bear species in Texas after the plains grizzly bear became extirpated in the 1960s.

Although they faced a rapid decline over several decades, black bear sightings increased from 25 in 2020 — the majority of which were in Big Bend — to 154 confirmed sightings in Texas in 2022.

The counties with confirmed sightings include:

• Kaufman County near Dallas

• Menard County near Fredericksburg

• Kimble County near Kerrville

• Uvalde County

Can you hunt black bears in Texas?

Black bears are protected, and it is illegal to hunt or poach them in Texas.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Woman drives into black bear near Kerrville in Texas Hill Country