© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

'Falling Bear,' We Hardly Knew You; Famous Bruin Killed On Highway

The "falling bear" photo that brought him fame.
Andy Duann
/
CU Independent
The "falling bear" photo that brought him fame.

It was just a week ago that he dropped into our lives.

Now, we're sorry to report that "falling bear" is dead.

In case you're not familiar with the story, it was April 26 when University of Colorado Boulder student Andy Duann snapped a shot of a tranquilized bear as it was falling from a tree on campus.

The bear survived and was released back into the wild about 50 miles from Boulder.

Duann's photo, meanwhile, went viral. And "falling bear" inspired the creation of and a Twitter hashtag ().

But early Thursday, the bear "met a tragic death ... in the Denver-bound lanes of U.S. 36.," the Daily Camera reports. Two cars struck him. One of the drivers suffered minor injuries. The bear was identified by a tag placed on his ear after the on-campus encounter.

"It's a bummer," Jennifer Churchill, a spokeswoman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, tells the Daily Camera.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and award-winning podcasts.
Your donation helps keep nonprofit journalism free and available for everyone.