Hair-Sniffing Bear Pays a Steep Price

A video in wide circulation last month showed the unnerving scene of a black bear in a Mexico park getting up close and personal with a young woman. The bear even stood on its hind legs and sniffed the woman's hair at one point, and she managed to take a selfie in the moment. Now, a not-so-great turn for the bear: Wildlife authorities captured and castrated the animal and will ship him out of his home in the Chipinque Ecological Park to new terrain, reports the BBC.

Amid criticism, authorities defended the move to relocate the bear by saying it has come too close to other visitors in the park as well. The castration, they say, will help keep the bear from fighting other males in its new home in the Sierra de Nido mountain range. Meanwhile, supporters of the bear say humans are to blame because they kept feeding the animal on visits to the park, causing it to become used to human interaction, reports CTV. An online petition (in Spanish) puts the blame squarely on "human recklessness." (More bear stories.)