A two-year old wild black bear has been sadly shot after it wandered into Minnesota with a plastic jar on its head. The jar had likely become lodged around the animals head as it foraged for food, and whilst the bear could breathe it could not eat or drink.
A local wildlife supervisor said efforts had been made to capture the bear alive as it moved through areas near the town of Lake George (where it was first spotted on 21 July) but that efforts to tranquilise the animal failed because the bear "stayed in forested areas".
Surely, though, if it was easy enough to shoot the bear dead as it entered a city, it would have been easy enough to shoot it with a tranquiliser at that point, haul it back into the woods, cut off the jar and leave some tasty food behind. So I see this as a pretty pointless waste of a beautiful life. What a shame.
