14 DAY TRIAL // This might come as a bit of a shock to some people (on second thought, quite a lot of them) but, as it turns out, cookie jars can sometimes prove nothing short of devilish. A brown bear cub found this out the hard way, when it got its head stuck inside one.
Luckily for the 6-month-old baby bear, it was spotted by folks exploring the woods in northern New Jersey and was soon rescued by wildlife specialists working with the country's Department of Environmental Protection.
According to Daily Mail, the incident occurred late last week. More precisely, it was on Friday night that the cub came across the evil cookie jar while exploring trash left behind by nature enthusiasts in Ringwood.
Wildlife experts say that the brown bear cub probably stuck its head inside the jar because it was hungry and found the scent rather appealing. Little did the young bear know that eating somebody else's crackers can come at a surprisingly hefty price.
The same source tells us that, when they came across the cub, the hikers who first spotted it walking around with the cookie jar adorning its otherwise utterly adorable head tried to catch it and free it themselves. However, they failed.
This is because, being as frightened as it was, the young bear decided that it already had too much trouble on its paws to also have to deal with the group of weird two-legged creatures. Hence, it quickly climbed in a nearby tree.
This turned out to be a very poor decision when the cookie jar got stuck in between two branches, keeping the bear cub from returning to the ground. Luckily, folks with the Department of Environmental Protection knew just how to handle this situation.
Thus, they first tranquilized the bear cub and eventually managed to get it out of the tree. Local firefighters then moved in and gently freed the animal's head from inside the cookie jar. Since the cub was fairly dehydrated, they also gave it some water.
Because the young bear's mother was nowhere in sight, the animal was taken to a rehabilitation center, where it will remain for about two months. It is expected that, once the cub starts feeling better, it will be released back in the wild.
Wildlife specialists and rangers say that, although such incidents are rather few and far between, they do happen. Consequently, they urge that people who go hiking make sure to clean up after themselves and don't leave any objects that might constitute a threat to wildlife lying around.