Captivity is just deserts for bear with taste for pastry

A BEAR that gained notoriety for its nocturnal raids on Italian bakeries and bins has been captured by wildlife authorities after failing to control its sweet tooth.

A row has broken out over the capture of the “problem” bear, nicknamed Juan Carrito, with conservationists saying more could have been done to dissuade it from entering mountain villages. It will now be placed in a sanctuary. The animal is a male Marsican brown bear, a rare subspecies found only in central Italy. There are only 50-60 left in the wild.

In December, the bear was airlifted by helicopter to a wilderness area after spending too much time in and around the ski resort town of Roccaraso, in the Abruzzo region, where it padded down streets, drank from water fountains and broke into a bakery to feast on freshlymade biscuits.

Rangers hoped the bear, known to biologists as M20, would learn its lesson and stay away from inhabited areas.

But after waking up from hibernation in the mountains, the animal demonstrated that it just could not kick its old habits, returning to Roccaraso to forage on discarded food.

It was captured by wildlife rangers in a tube trap and taken to a reserve near the village of Palena in Abruzzo. Whilst he will be fed in his new home, he will have no direct contact with humans – rangers are hoping that eventually he can be released back into the wild after a suitable period of reeducation.

“Our intervention was necessary to protect the bear and keep it away from situations that were potentially dangerous, from an urban environment in which for too long he has been living almost exclusively off refuse,” said Lucio Zazzara, head of the Maiella National Park, part of bear territory.

Conservationists said the creature should never have been captured in the first place. They said that locking up just one bear will have a big impact on the viability of the subspecies, which is critically endangered.

Much more could have been done to make towns and villages less tempting to the bear, said WWF Italy.

There had been a failure to adopt anti-bear rubbish skips and to ensure better refuse collection in towns like Roccaraso, the organisation said.