Bruno the Bear Shot Dead

For the past seven weeks he had led an idyllic existence, swimming in lakes, eating honey and killing the odd sheep. But the adventures of Germany's most famous fugitive - Bruno the Bear - came to an abrupt end yesterday when a group of Bavarian hunters unapologetically shot him dead.

After weeks of attempts to stun and capture the bear, Bavaria's environment ministry announced over the weekend that Bruno could be shot. Three Bavarian hunters took matters into their own hands. German officials confirmed that Bruno had been killed at 4.50am near the town of Zell in southern Germany. "The shooting has happened - the bear is dead," said Manfred Wölfl, the Bavarian government's bear specialist. Officials said the bear, which has been commuting since early May between the mountains of Italy, Austria and Germany, was a risk to humans.

"It's not that we don't welcome bears in Bavaria. It's just that this one wasn't behaving properly," said Otmar Bernhard, an official with Bavaria's environment ministry. "The bear kept wandering into populated areas. Its death was regrettable. But we didn't have much choice."

"This animal didn't just kill when he was hungry. He had a lust for killing," Anton Steixner, an official from South Tirol, said, dismissing those who protested at Bruno's death as "fanatics".

Environmentalists who had been campaigning to save Bruno - the first bear to wander into Germany for 170 years - reacted with fury. "It's incomprehensible," Heike Finke, spokeswoman for Germany's Wildlife Alliance, told the Guardian. "Other countries like France, Romania, Austria and Italy manage to co-exist with bears. But three weeks after the first one turns up in Germany we have to shoot it dead. It's so frustrating."

She added: "I have to go and lecture developing world countries about how they should save their elephants and tigers. I haven't got much credibility as a German when we kill our only bear. It's embarrassing."

A team of Finnish hunters had spent two weeks trying to capture Bruno. They gave up last Friday after their attempts to stun and capture him failed and their dogs collapsed with exhaustion.