Michigan Bear Finally Free After 2 Years With Plastic Lid Stuck Around Its Neck

After getting a plastic lid stuck around its neck as a cub two years ago, a young black bear in Michigan is finally free of his unwanted accessory, after state wildlife biologists successfully removed it.

According to a statement from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the bear first caught the attention of biologists back in 2023, after a trail camera snapped photos of the animal, then a cub, with what appeared to be a blue plastic lid hanging on its neck.

It’s the sort of thing that they’d typically like to act on quickly – but unfortunately, the young bear proved to be somewhat slippery, being spotted on a trail camera one day but then having disappeared from the area by the next.

However, back in late May of this year, the bear was spotted once again, this time by the trail camera of a resident in Montmorency County. That landowner notified the DNR of the bear’s appearance, and the team of biologists quickly set up a baited enclosure trap.

It was a success – on June 2, the bear was caught and anesthetized. As nice a feeling as we imagine it is to get something annoying off your neck, the bear probably wouldn’t take too kindly to being grappled whilst it was awake.  

Safely conked out, the team cut the lid off the bear and checked the animal over. Its neck had an abscess and some pretty gnarly scarring, but against all odds, they found it “otherwise seemed healthy”. The lid could’ve affected its ability to eat, but it weighed about the same as any other 2-year-old black bear – a solid 50 kilograms (110 pounds).

Once the sleepy juice had worn off, the bear was released back where it was found, free at last to live without a barrel lid for a necklace.

Quite how the bear initially wound up in this situation is unclear, but it’s likely that it was in search of food. The lid, said the DNR, is similar to that found on the type of plastic barrels used for storing animal feed, but also for bearbaiting by hunters.

Bearbaiting is legal in Michigan, but is regulated, and one such stipulation is that any holes in containers used as bait must be either 2.54 centimeters (1 inch) or less, or 55.9 centimeters (22 inches) or greater in diameter. The hole in the lid in which the young bear got stuck was 12.7 centimeters (5 inches) across.

DNR officials have said that the case emphasizes the importance of sticking to the regulations. “Container openings of a certain size can result in bears and other wildlife getting their heads or other body parts stuck in them, leading to injury or death,” said Cody Norton, DNR’s furbearer and small game specialist, in the statement. “It’s important to remember that the opening diameter is more important than the size of the container.”

But it’s not just hunters that have a part to play – there have been multiple instances of both young bears getting their heads stuck in household waste too, in several cases plastic food containers like empty cheeseball tubs. Norton called for people to be “BearWise” with their garbage, making sure that it’s secure from vulnerable paws.