The Asian black bear. (Photo/China News Service)
People can hardly resist the cuteness of any baby animal cub – and Yang was no different.
Yang, a villager from Yongsheng County, southwest China's Yunnan Province, found what he thought was a puppy when he was foraging for mushrooms in the mountains near his home in April 2015.
According to Yang's description, which he gave to local media, his heart melted when he saw the newborn "puppy", which had pink paws and just recently opened its eyes. He took it home and named the cub Hanhan.
But the cub he took was not a puppy at all – it was an Asian black bear.
As the cub grew, he found a V-shaped white patch on its chest, indicating Hanhan was a bear – but he still kept it in his yard, sometimes in a specially made cage for safety concerns, until it grew to 1.7 meters tall and weighed 80 kilograms.
On Feb. 23., some netizens reported to the local police's official WeChat account that they saw a bear on their WeChat Friends' circle, a Chinese social media platform for sharing images with friends. After investigating, local police found Yang and the bear.
According to local forest police, the Asian bear is a second-level protected species in China, meaning it is not allowed to be kept as a pet by anyone without approval from the forest authority, China Youth Daily reported.
The bear was handed to the local government's wild animal protection department on March 6, and then moved to a local animal welfare center.
Since the bear has been raised by humans and kept as household animal, it can not be released into the wild yet and must stay in captivity.
