dear quebec, please kill this guy. i'm serious. put a bullet in his head. - 2003-09-11 1:55 p.m.

Canadian Press
Sept. 11, 2003 09:10 AM

WAKEFIELD, Quebec - A Quebec woodsman, who wanted a black bear as a pet, ran over a cub several times with his Jet Ski on the Gatineau River this week as the cub's mother snarled from shore.

The cub, nicknamed Buddy Bear, was swimming across the river near Wakefield, north of Ottawa, when Denis Ryan grabbed it.

The bear broke free several times by clawing at Ryan and tried to swim to shore, only to be dragged back out into deeper water.

To wear out the bear, Ryan ran over it with the Jet Ski, forcing the cub's head under water.

The 55-year-old woodsman got his best grip on the cub by holding it upside down by one of its hind legs. He then dunked the animal repeatedly to drain the cub's energy.

The cub was moaning, desperately trying to breathe.

"I just lifted him up and then I could dunk him. Then he couldn't breathe. I kept dunking and kept dunking him," Ryan recalled.

"I was never mean to the bear. There was a couple of times I wanted to hit him over the head with a pipe or something but I didn't do that."

To stop the cub from jumping off the Jet Ski, Ryan tied a rope around one of its hind legs, kept one hand on a leash, the other on the handle bar.

He drove toward a public landing in the heart of Wakefield. He figured a cub on the back of a Jet Ski would make a good picture for the town's weekly newspaper, The Low Down to Hull and Back News.

But the rope came loose and the cub escaped. As it swam for shore, Ryan's Jet Ski started to run out of gas.

The bear reached shore just as Andrew Wilson, the newspaper's reporter, appeared with his camera.

Ryan jumped off the Jet Ski and tackled the bear as it tried to scramble up the bank.

"Then I tied him again and dunked him again to get the energy out of him. I tied him pretty good this time. He was so tired out," Ryan said.

Wilson took some photographs, then called Quebec wildlife officers.

Wildlife officers eventually took the animal, tagged it and released it into the woods as an orphan near Montebello, Que. Quebec's wildlife protection squad is investigating the incident.

Anyone convicted of possessing a big game animal without a permit could face a $2,000 fine.

"It was a pretty distasteful sight," Wilson said. "You have this man dunking this cub, basically the size of a small dog. The cub was obviously not a happy camper. It just seemed like a bad situation."

Ryan, who makes his living cutting and planting trees, said he intended to keep the cub on a leash at home to see if he could tame it before releasing it back into the wilderness with the hope it would return for visits.

He also said he wanted to keep the bear out of the village to spare children from being attacked.

Passing motorists and Gatineau police said Ryan was mistreating the cub.

"I could see their point of view, but from my point of view, it's one less bear in town where there are kids at school," Ryan said. "That's not called being mean to the bear. That's called being nice to the children."