Italian officials are threatening to prosecute a person who chased after a terrified bear causing her to lose two of her cubs just so the car driver could shoot a video.

Reward To Track Down Driver Who Chased Mama Bear And Cub In Car To Film Them pic.twitter.com/S0MQUzENdJ

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The footage was shot in the small regional town of Roccaraso in central Italy, in the province of L’Aquila which is in the Abruzzo region.

It starts off with the car filming the huge numbering mother there and the much smaller cub as they run down the middle of the street.

As the car comes closer, the mother bear runs into a housing complex and then realising that there is no way out clambers onto a wall where she then is stuck.

She comes to the end and realises her cub can no longer follow her.

As a result, she turns round and walks back down the so that she can be rejoined by her cub, with the person in the car continuing to film.

Her two other cubs have disappeared ever since and activists suspect they may have got lost as a result of the chase, according to local media.

The local mayor, Francesco Di Donato, said that they were pursuing legal action because it is forbidden “to approach specimens of the Marsican brown bear on foot, by car and by any means at distances of less than 300 metres”.

It is also forbidden “to illuminate the specimens of the Marsican brown bear with any lamp or other light source except for dissuasion activities, carried out exclusively by authorized personnel”.

The region is known for its bear population which is why there are strict rules in place to discourage them from going into town including bins locked and not putting out food for domestic pets that the bears might be tempted to try and take.

A local animal rights group the Italian Association for the Defense of Animals and the Environment also offered a EUR 500 (GBP 427) reward for information about the person in the car that filmed.

The tough regulations were introduced in the town in 2021 when a bear that was too friendly with human beings was run over and killed on the road.