GERMANY: Bruno the bear met a grizzly end yesterday morning when he was shot dead by a mysterious gunman after two months roaming the Alps and eluding capture.
The fatal shot came less than five hours after Bavarian authorities issued a "shoot-to-kill" order on the so-called "problem bear" who had killed dozens of sheep and chickens in his 400km journey.
The identity of Bruno's executioner was kept a closely-guarded secret yesterday after Bavarian authorities received death threats from inconsolable animal conservationists who had welcomed Bruno as the first bear in the Bavarian Alps in 170 years.
"Nobody is happy about the news here, but at least we're not here today discussing a human death or injury," said a spokesman. "The bear was a unique case. He had no fear of humans or of entering human settlements for food and we had no other choice."
The 100kg (220lbs) bear, officially called JJ1, was believed to be one of 20 cubs born in the Italian Alps a decade after a group of Slovenian bears were let into the wild there.
He first attracted attention in May for leaving a bloody trail of slaughtered sheep, chickens and racing pigeons in his wake.
He never harmed any humans but vanished whenever German authorities unveiled increasingly farcical schemes to catch him.
First a team of Finnish hunting dogs were brought in but found nothing.
Then a female bear was located in the hope of serving as a honey trap, until one expert pointed out that it was unlikely that Bruno, believed to have been only two years of age, was old enough to be interested.
A special aluminium bear trap was flown in but remained unused while plans to hit him with a tranquillising dart came to nothing because it required getting within 30m (98ft) of the bear, something no one managed to do.
Animal rights groups attacked the shoot-to-kill policy as unbearable and called for new guidelines to teach Germans what to do if they encounter another Bruno.
"Sadly this was foreseeable," said Jörn Ehlers, spokesman for the World Wide Fund for Nature in Germany. "Bruno found his way into our hearts, although one also had to see the danger."
It emerged yesterday that the still-warm Bruno is already set for a comeback, when he is stuffed and put on display in a Munich museum.