Hunter Kills Bear Who Survived Wildfire Burns

A sad end to the life of a famous bear: Cinder, a female bear whose story captured the nation's attention after she survived a 2014 wildfire with severe burns, has been shot to death near her den in Washington state, KOMO News reports. As a cub in 2014, she was rescued by a rancher who found her sheltering under a horse trailer after a massive wildfire burned around 400 square miles. Cinder, who had third-degree burns on all four paws, was treated for a year at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care and was released with a radio collar after spending time at Idaho Black Bear Rehabilitation relearning how to be a wild bear. Her story was told in the children's e-book Cinder the Bear.

Rich Beausoleil of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says the radio collar stopped working last year. He hiked to the area near Cinder's den in the Cascades in September and discovered she had been shot by a hunter who cut the collar off, Fox reports. It's not illegal in Washington state to kill a bear with a radio collar, but the hunter was supposed to report it, Beausoleil says. Cinder was two years old when she was released in 2015 alongside an orphaned cub named Kaulana who wouldn't leave her side while they were at the wildlife facility, the AP reports. Kaulana was legally killed by a hunter the same year. (A famous wolf in Yellowstone was recently killed by a hunter just outside the park.)