A female polar bear with a cub were spotted by chief state environmental inspector Ilya Petukhov in the vicinity of the Ushakovskoye central lodge on Wrangel Island on 28 October, the press service of the Wrangel Island Nature Reserve reports

The curious cub must have been carried away playing with an empty tin can that eventually got stuck in its mouth. Reserve wardens put both the female bear and the cub to sleep and carefully extracted the foreign object.

“A few hours later, the bear family, in good health and as happy as ever, embarked on their further ice travels,” the report says.