We’ve all made mistakes. But, most of us have never mistaken a bear for a dog, and then raised it for two years as the family pet.
A family in China, however, did just that.
Su Yun bought the bear cub on a vacation, after being misled about its species. Whoever sold the “puppy” to her must have needed to get rid of it in a hurry – Asiatic Black Bears are worth a fortune on the black market.
Luckily though, the bear cub ended up with a loving family instead of being sold for parts. For the first two years of Little Blacks life, the Yun family thought he was a Tibetan Mastiff.
The family started to grow suspicious after seeing just how much their dog would eat. “A box of fruits and two buckets of noodles every day,” Su Yun told Chinese media. While it does seem odd that any dog would want to eat a box of fruit, stranger things have happened. We can sort of understand letting that slide.
It was only when Little Black started walking around on two legs that the Yuns realized he was not a dog at all.
The family is from Yunnan Province where it’s illegal to raise or keep wildlife animals, especially Asiatic Black Bears which are endangered.
She asked the local Kunming Zoo for advice, but without a birth certificate of the bear, the zoo couldn’t help.
Eventually, Su Yun contacted Kunming Forestry Police and they suggested to send the bear to Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Centre.
Little Black was a full meter tall and weighed in at a whopping 440lbs. Which is either normal size for a two-year-old bear or one massive dog.
Rescue workers sedated Little Black before handling him, obviously scared to death by the bear’s size. So yeah, Su Yun is basically a bad ass (who might not know her species) that lived with an actual bear for two years.
An initial check-up showed the bear to be healthy, he’s now happily being taken care of at a wildlife rescue facility.
For more Asiatic Black Bears, go see how this bear reacts to seeing grass for the first time in fifteen years.