Bruno was an adult male black bear from Wisconsin, and a handsome one at that.
But all of that didn’t make it unusual in a state with around 30,000 bears.
His wanderlust is what really sets him apart.
In late spring and early summer 2020, he left Badger State and swam the Mississippi River into Iowa.
It protruded from the green fields and open spaces and became a novelty. There he was given his name.
And a Facebook site that grew to 215,000 followers.
He became a kind of celebrity. An ambassador of his species.
Sue Kline, of Muscatine, Iowa, told the Des Moines Register that Bruno seemed to prefer fields and groves to forests and that he had never just collected bins and dumpsters.
“This bear never bothered anyone or anything, not once,” said Kline. “He walked through cities, through the parking lots of supermarkets and never bothered anyone.”
Last June, more than 100 people gathered to watch and photograph Bruno in Scott County, Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register. The police warned against “loving the bear to death”.
Bruno made it out of Iowa and back to Wisconsin before heading south to Illinois and Missouri.
Last weekend of July 4th, it drew an estimated 400 people in a maze of freeways outside of St. Louis. But since this posed a risk to Bruno and his audience, officials from the Missouri Department of Conservation calmed the bear and took him to the northeast corner of the Ozark Mountains.
Bruno then continued his trek south to Arkansas and finally Louisiana.
As is so often the case with large land animals that make long movements out of their territory, this ended with Bruno being hit by a vehicle.
The bear, which had two broken legs, was euthanized Tuesday by staff at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
It is estimated that Bruno covered 800 miles, a very long way for any animal, especially a black bear.
It is not uncommon for male bears to travel a dozen or more miles in search of a mate during the breeding season. Or to be pestered and poked by hunting dogs during the Wisconsin training or hunting season.
But Bruno’s case is unprecedented for a black bear.
Why did the bear cross the middle of the nation?
Daryl Ratajczak, former director of wildlife and forestry for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and founder and current director of an educational group called Wildlife For You, said it was normal to ask that question.
“So many people wonder why Bruno went on his tour,” said Ratajczak. “To be honest, we will most likely never find out.”
Ratajczak said a piece of data discovered during an autopsy performed on Bruno in Louisiana could help provide a partial explanation. Bruno had cryptorchidism, a condition in which one or both testicles did not descend according to the evaluation.
Because of his very unusual physical and hormonal makeup, Bruno may not have been interested in finding a partner and “pretty much just kept walking,” said Ratajczak.
It’s been quite a journey for his type. And he turned out to be a versatile traveler. Bruno is said to have swum across the Mississippi four times.
In terms of distance, a literature review by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found no evidence of a black bear traveling as far as Bruno.
But other large land mammals also make epic moves, and some of them annually.
Caribou herds in Canada make seasonal migrations between 745 and 930 miles round-trip, according to “Longest terrestrial migrations and movements around the world“, A 2019 paper in Scientific Reports.
In Asia, the saiga antelope makes a round-trip migration of about 2,500 miles in Kazakhstan, the longest land mammal migration in the world, the researchers said.
One of the most famous herd movements is the blue wildebeest between wet and dry seasonal areas in Africa’s Serengeti ecosystem. You cover about 300 miles in a loop.
Predators sometimes make just as long, if not longer, movements with their main prey, the paper says. For example, gray wolves in Alaska travel hundreds of miles during caribou migration, and grizzly bears in Canada follow moose during their seasonal journeys.
But it’s the outliers that draw the most attention.
A male mountain lion who drove through Wisconsin The St. Croix cougar was named in 2010, killed in a collision with a vehicle in Connecticut the next year.
Biologists estimate the animal, which likely originated in the Black Hills of South Dakota, traveled approximately 1,600 miles.
In 2020 a male gray wolf was caught in the UP of Michigan, fitted with a GPS tracking collar and approved. Over the next six months, it traveled through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Manitoba and back to Minnesota before being illegally killed. It has traveled 2,000 miles.
Male white-tailed deer are known to disperse during the rut, or annual breeding season, to find new territory or to seek mate. The longest known white-tailed spread is 186 miles over 22 days in Missouri. According to researchers, the animal crossed nine highways and seven rivers.
In none of these cases was the reason for the extraordinary movement known.
And of course, swimming or flying animals cover even longer distances.
People are endless and naturally fascinated by wildlife. From my point of view, it’s good to have some secrets.
In the case of Bruno, the Wisconsin black bear wowed people across the country.
A movement has begun to memorialize the animal by naming a section of the highway or other location after it.
Daryl Ratajczak said Bruno helped break down barriers, a significant achievement in America in 2021.
“(People) stopped talking about politics, they didn’t care what party you belong to, what skin color you are, who or what you worshiped, who you voted for or who your favorite team was,” said Ratajczak. “In this case, your team wasn’t the bears, but simply ‘the bear’. And everyone knew exactly who this bear was. “
