Posted: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 12:00 am
DENVER (AP) - A bear shown stumbling on a national television news segment and described as drunk was actually sick and has been euthanized.
A necropsy on the bear found no trace of alcohol, The Denver Post reported Sunday.
"People want to associate wild animals with human behavior," said Colorado Division of Wildlife veterinarian Laurie Baeten, who was with the young bear when it was euthanized. "And so they said she was drunk. It made a good clip. They wanted to look at this cute bear and see something that wasn't there. They wanted to see a circus bear. It's kind of sad."
In the footage, the bear was shown staggering and trying to get up in downtown Lyons, north of Boulder. Viewers were told the bear was sloshed from eating fermented apples. A wildlife official was shown tranquilizing the bear with a dart and moving it to a wild area.
Baeten said she has never verified stories of bears getting drunk from eating fruit.
The bear was taken to a Division of Wildlife facility near Loveland, where Baeten examined it.
"She was breathing heavily, which is not normal for a bear coming out of anesthesia," Baeten said. "By Wednesday morning, we didn't see any improvement. She didn't seem to be able to see."
The bear, which hadn't eaten, tried but was unable to eat grapes put in its cage. Baeten decided to euthanize the animal.
"It's a tough thing to do," she said.
Tests will be conducted to try to determine how the animal became ill. Some of the likely causes include rabies, West Nile Virus and toxic exposure from eating fertilizer.
"That's common in bears," Baeten said. "We have no idea why they eat it, but they do."