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A family in China raised what it believed to be a 250-pound dog for two years before learning it was actually an endangered species of bear, the Independent reports.
Su Yun, who lives in the village of Yunnan, said she brought what she believed to be a Tibetan Mastiff home after a vacation in 2016. Yun described the animal as having a surprisingly large appetite and eating a "box of fruits and two buckets of noodles" every day.
Her family finally realized that the large animal likely wasn't a dog when it continued to grow and began to walk on two legs.
“The more he grew, the more like a bear he looked,” Yun said via the Independent. “I am a little scared of bears.”
The animal was transported to the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Center after the family contacted authorities for help. Officials shared footage of the bear standing on its two legs and were reported to be so intimidated that they needed to sedate the animal before taking it away from the home.
The bear was identified by officials as an endangered Asiatic Black Bear, which is valued at thousands of dollars on the black market, according to the Independent. A similar incident had previously taken place in the Yunnan province when a man was found to be raising a bear he initially believed to be a stray dog in March 2022, which he kept in a cage.