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Mystery of the blue bear

A Mission man sparked a local mystery when he captured images of an unusual bear this week.

Aaron Smith was driving past Silvermere Lake on Tuesday when he noticed a black bear and her cubs.

Pulling out his camera, he noticed the bear wasn't just black – it was black and blue.

As in its head was blue and its body was as one might expect to see a black bear in the woods.

“It was only after I pulled over and pulled out my zoom lens I saw that something was wrong with the bear’s head,” he told CTV. “It was pretty crazy. It’s a very blue head.”

Some have suggested the bear might have set off a trap set with paint, or stuck its head into a Port-A-Potty.

But conservation officers say the curious bear likely stuck its head in a can of paint.

“Being that I see there’s a clear line on the bear’s neck of a saturation of blue, it looks like he would have dipped his head in something,” Chris Jones of Mission Animal Control told CTV.

“I didn’t see speckling or anything from being sprayed or anything like that.”

Bear sightings are common in the area, but this one is unlike any other. The bruin has become a local celebrity.

“It could be our new mascot,” said Jones.

– with files from CTV Vancouver

 



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