A young man black bear of the County of Montmorecy, in Michigan, He lived two years as an nightmare, a prisoner of an object he would never have to meet. After an endless torment, he was finally freed from a large plastic lid that had squeezed his neck for two years. The animal, a male of about two years, had been sighted for the first time in 2023 by some phototrappole, with the blue cover stuck in the head: an object similar to those used in the 209 liter stems, commonly used by hunters for baits or landowners to keep the feed for chickens.
In the end, after months of fleeting sightings, the turning point came at the end of May, when a resident of the Hillman area recognized the bear from the images of his photratapples.
So the biologists team of the Department of Natural Resources of Michigan (DNR), who received the report, installed a trap with bait and on June 2 he managed to safely catch the animal.
After anesthetized it, the operators cut the lid away. Fortunately, the bear, albeit debilitated and with deep scars, He was in good health: He weighed about 50 kg, in the norm for his age; Then it was released in the area.
Our Milanese can cost dear animals
It is not clear where and how the animal was trapped, but the lid in question was not in accordance with. And this case raises crucial questions about the impact that our daily actions can have on wildlife.
In Michigan, the regulations provide that the containers used as hunting baits are used only on private soils and that the openings are either very small (≤2.5 cm) or very large (≥55 cm), precisely to avoid accidents of this type.
The intermediate size openings represent a concrete risk: they can trap the head or other parts of the body of the bears, with often fatal consequences ” – explained Cody Norton, specialist of the Department of natural resources of Michigan (DNR) – is not so much the size of the container, as that of the opening to make the difference.
Even a simple container or a small cap dispersed in the environment can turn into a mortal traps. Each small gesture – from the separate collection made correctly to compliance with the regulations – can make the difference between life and death for fauna.
