Mexico: Town Locals Torture 4-Month-Old Black Bear Cub to Death

A 4-month-old black bear received bouts of torture from locals until it succumbed to death after it wandered into a town in Mexico in search of water.

The cub entered Castaos town in the Mexican state of Coahuila, where locals beat, strangled, and tied its legs together until it died.

Social media images of the incident show locals dragging the young creature along the ground with a rope.

The black bear cub, which was in the center of a group of people, is being pulled by villagers who are holding the rope at both ends.

In the pictures, villagers are smiling while still encircling the black bear cub. The animal was eventually choked to death by the locals.

Pictures shared on social media showed the tortured cub lying dead.

Coahuila

The Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA), according to Coahuila Governor Miguel Riquelme, has now opened a criminal investigation into the incident.

Animal abuse will not be tolerated in Coahuila, the governor declared on Twitter. Their commitment is to make sure the environment and our species are protected.

Riquelme added that this cruel deed won't go unpunished.

Mexican Black Bears

Mexican black bears, according to Bear Conservation, are a protected species.

Poaching and habitat loss have harmed the species in the past. Despite being prohibited, poaching still happens in some places, and sometimes body parts, as well as skins, are sold illegally.

The offenders might pay a fine in addition to going to jail.

Well-known environmental activist and actor, Arturo Islas Allende shared images of the incident on Facebook and urged authorities to "act quickly" by not only punishing those at fault but also state police officers who failed to step in.

Allende claimed in a Facebook post that the bear received worse treatment than the most heinous offenders.

The fact that there were police present and they did nothing but smile and enjoy themselves as if it were a circus event, he continued, is infuriating to see in the evidence.

In his tweet, Allende urged the government to act.

Habitat Loss

The conflict between humans and wildlife has increased globally, largely as a result of habitat loss.

Animals may stray into populated places in search of food and water when their habitats are destroyed.

Wild animals may have difficulty finding water as a result of climate change's hotter temperatures and altered predictable weather patterns, pushing them to look for their needs elsewhere, Newsweek reported.

Mexican Black Bears

Black bears are elusive and shy species, and unless they are directly threatened, they very seldom pose a threat to people.

Female bears fiercely guard their cubs, who are typically too defenseless to repel any threats, so it is unclear where the mother bear was at the time of the incident.

Although their precise range in Mexico is unclear, black bears have been found in the states of Sonora, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Zacatecas, and Durango.

The new trail camera survey conducted in Sierra Gorda in 2019 provided the first verifiable evidence of black bears in Central Mexico in over a century.

Given that they are thought to have originated from the Nuevo Leon population, it is assumed that these black bears are Ursus americanus eremicus, according to Bear Conservation data.