An infamous brown bear who was spotted stealing biscuits from an Italian mountain village bakery has shown his face again, but this time he is searching for panettone.
Locals in Abruzzo, central Italy, have called him Juan Carrito and reports say he has already been tranquillised twice and flown to remote mountain areas to keep him away from humans.
Juan is a rare Mariscan species with only 50-60 left in the wild, they are genetically different to the brown bears which live in the Alps and many other parts of Europe.
“He came out of the woods behind the restaurant, possibly attracted by the smell of panettone, which they had been making at our culinary school,” Niko Romito, head chef at the restaurant in Castel di Sangro told the Times.
She said often deers run away when they see a human, but the bear seemed "right at home, wandering around for 30 minutes and totally ignoring the barking dogs."
Luciano Sammarone, head of the nearby national park of Abruzzo, told the Times that the bear seems less keen to venture into town and rummage through bins.
“There will be no more helicopter trips, but I do hope he hibernates this winter,” he added.
Last year Juan was seen drinking from a fountain and breaking into a bakery before park rangers sedated him and flew into the nearby Majella national park, only for him to brazenly reappear in the town 18 days later.
“Since March 25, the day when the bear was released back into the wild, until today, the bear has spent 18 days travelling through the valleys of the Maiella national park, walking around 150 kilometres, feeding off plants and ants.
“The bear’s return to Roccaraso was an outcome which, since the start of the translocation project, was considered highly probable", national park officials said in a statement earlier in the year.
“It’s a bad thing to say from a nature point of view, but for him, it seems natural to be in Roccaraso, where there is activity, people and other animals,” said Lucio Zazzara, the president of the Majella national park to the Guardian.
