Blue-headed bear baffles beside British Columbia road

MISSION, British Columbia, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- A photographer on his drive home stopped at the side of a British Columbia road to take pictures and video of an unusual sight: a black bear with a blue head.

Aaron Smith said he was driving home last week on Highway 7 in Mission when he spotted the bear with the unusual cranial coloring.

Smith posted a video of the bear on YouTube along with a Facebook picture of the curiously colored animal.

"What have I learned from this situation? If you're a photographer, always have your camera and a zoom lens on you!" he said on Facebook.

Officer Paul McFadden of the British Columbia Conservation Service said the bear doesn't appear to be in any distress from its condition.

"The bear appears to be healthy and fine ... it's foraging and with a cub," McFadden told CBC News. "Maybe it got into a can of spray paint thinking it was food, maybe it dipped its head in a bucket of dye ... it's a bear doing a bear thing."