There's fear and there's an idea. He might attack humans, so they want to shoot him with a narcotic dart. Then they'll give him a job in publishing and a Range Rover to visit the country in at weekends. Bruno, or JJ1, and his brother, JJ2, are still roaming the Alps in search of lost sheep. Bruno, whose name sounds a lot gayer than he really is, has eaten 20 so far. If I was a Bavarian civic official who had to come up with a nickname for a brown bear, I wouldn't give it an amiable homosexual name, even if the alliterative B thing is agreeable. The figures for JJ2, who has chosen to hunt sheep on the Italian side, are not known.

Both Austrian and Bavarian hunters, more used to chasing bumblebees and performing daisy chains, have failed to catch the bear, so a group of Finnish huskies have been brought in to sniff the bugger out. Don't worry, though, the dogs have been shaved, so it's not too hot for them.

The bears' mother, Traudl, has another three cubs, and for some reason she is blamed for their savage behaviour. Did she neglect Bruno for having a gay name?