Italy: F43 bear dies during capture

Rome: A female brown bear known as F43 died in a trap in the north Italian region of Trentino during a “routine intervention” to replace the wild animal’s GPS collar.

Initial investigations by the veterinary team revealed that the animal died as a result of the “position it assumed in the trap when the anesthetic took effect”, reports newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The bear, which had been monitored for some time after being deemed “problematic” by authorities in the autonomous region, had been fitted with a GPS collar since July 2021.

Attempts to resuscitate the bear, captured in a so-called culvert trap in Val di Ledro, were to no avail.

“The need to monitor problematic bears intensively and to try to modify their behaviour can lead to accidents such as the one that occurred, given the inherent risks in delicate operations, often conducted in difficult contexts and environmental conditions”, the province of Trento said in a statement.

Two years ago forest rangers in Trentino recaptured a brown bear after it had escaped from a high-security enclosure in Castellar for the second time.

The bear – known as M49 to authorities, Papillon to his fans – had spent a month on the run after scaling high-voltage electric fences and four-metre barriers before managing to remove its GPS collar.