Chinese family raises ‘dog’ for 2 years — then realises it’s a bear
Su Yun, a native of a remote village near the city of Kunming in Yunnan province, purchased the animal during a vacation in 2016, believing it was a Tibetan mastiff puppy.
In a bizarre incident in China, a family got the shock of their lives when they discovered that their pet which they raised thinking it was a dog for two long years was actually an Asiatic black bear.
Su Yun, a native of a remote village near the city of Kunming in Yunnan province, purchased the animal during a vacation in 2016, believing it was a Tibetan mastiff puppy. After two years, when their pet had grown to an alarming size of 250 pounds and began walking on two legs, the family became bewildered and reached out to the authorities. The authorities identified the animal as an Asiatic black bear, classified as a vulnerable species on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN's) Red List, according to a report by New York Post (article beyond paywall).
Yun was immediately struck by her puppy's insatiable appetite- a box of fruits and two buckets of noodles daily. As it grew, the animal's behaviour was unlike any dog. "The more he grew, the more like a bear he looked", she told the news outlet.
As soon as Yun reached out to a professional, she was told that her pet was an Asiatic bear. The authorities revealed that the bear weighed over 400 pounds and was one meter tall. The Yunnan Wildlife Rescue department immediately took the animal and tranquilised it before shifting it into a cage, the report added.
Tibetan mastiffs are huge dogs with black-brown coats, which can weigh up to 150 pounds while fully grown male Asiatic bears, also known as Himalayan or moon bears, can weigh up to 400 pounds.
The bizarre incident went viral for the first time in 2018. However, the news went viral again recently.
