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There is outrage in Mexico after a black bear on video saw a visitor in a nature park and her hair was sniffed and castrated.
Some people ask questions about plans to move the animal to another state.
But experts say the move is necessary because it had become accustomed to feeding people in the ecological park where it lived.
They said the footage showed the consequences of feeding wild animals for the sake of a selfie.
‘Friendly bear’
The animal, a juvenile male black bear weighing 96 kg (212lb), was caught because it was considered a hazard to visitors to Chipinque Ecological Park. Video showed that it came very close to a young woman who took a selfie with the bear last month.
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Officials said there had been other close encounters between people and the same bear in the park and in neighborhoods nearby.
Although attacks are rare, one person per year is killed on average by a black bear in North America, bear researcher Dave Garshelis told ABC News last year.
Wildlife experts remind visitors that bears are wild and dangerous with sometimes unpredictable behavior.
Locals near Chipinque Ecological Park called the animal “the friendly bear” and named it “Chipi” after the park where it lived.
The bear was taken prisoner by officials from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (Profepa) while having a snooze in the backyard of a house after its occupants alerted authorities to their unexpected guest.
Veterinarians at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León monitored it and fitted it with a radio collar.
The animal was also castrated, a movement now being investigated by Profepa.
The agency has released a statement saying the decision to castrate the bear was taken by the university’s wildlife coordinator after consultation with Profepa’s director general for wildlife control, Martín Vargas Prieto.
According to the statement [in Spanish], Mr Vargas Prieto claimed that the bear had to be castrated to prevent him from getting into fights with other bears, once he was released in the Sierra de Nido Mountains in the state of Chihuahua.
Both the castration and the planned move to Chihuahua have caused panic among people in the state of Nuevo León, where the bear was taken prisoner.
But some have commented on social media that anything that led to the decision to castrate and relocate the bear, the embarrassment should be directed at those visitors and guides who reported having the bear with sticks to give him people approach who wanted to take selfies with him.
