Things Did Not End Well for This Bear on Power Pole

Drivers in northeast New Mexico got an unsettling roadside sight this week: a black bear perched high on a utility pole near Gladstone, panting right next to live power lines. Witness Shannon Mullens tells the New York Times that a 911 dispatcher told her family there was little responders could safely do, as tranquilizing or coaxing the animal down risked a dangerous fall. KRQE reports that officials tried to cut power to the wires, but it was too late—by the time a utility crew and sheriff's deputy arrived, the bear had been electrocuted and lay dead on the ground, Union County Sheriff Curtis Skaggs tells the Times.

The New Mexico Department of Wildlife said onlookers may have helped keep the bear stranded, as it likely feared the crowd below. "Local dispatch was asked to instruct concerned citizens to leave the bear alone," the agency said in a statement to USA Today. "However, some members of the public continued to stop next to the power pole to film and take pictures of the bear, so the bear remained at the top of the pole."

Larger animals that end up spanning and touching two wires, which is how fatal shocks are delivered, are especially vulnerable to such accidents, biologists note, per the Times. Wildlife experts say such encounters may become more common as drought and climate change push bears into new territory in search of food.