Michigan wildlife officials recently freed a young male black bear from a compressing plastic lid that got stuck around its neck two years prior.

Biologists at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources field office in Atlanta, a community in the northern part of the state, first spotted the cub, via trail cameras, sporting its unintentional accessory in 2023, the agency said in a release Wednesday.

In the years afterward, they saw the bear again fleetingly on the cameras, but it disappeared quickly after each time it was spotted.

Late last month, a Hillman, Michigan, resident spotted footage of the bear on field cameras posted on his wooded property. DNR biologists managed to trap and safely anesthetize the roughly 2-year-old bear on June 2 before cutting the lid off.

The bear had gotten its head stuck in a 5-inch opening in the blue plastic lid, DNR said. Similar lids can be found on bear-baiting 55-gallon drums as well as on things like chicken feed that can attract hungry bears.

Baiting bears is legal in Michigan, but only if the hunters use an opening with a diameter of 1 inch or less or a diameter of 22 inches or more.

“Container openings of a certain size can result in bears and other wildlife getting their heads or other body parts stuck in them, leading to injury or death. It’s important to remember that the opening diameter is more important than the size of the container,” Cody Norton, a DNR bear, furbearer and small game specialist, said in the release.

The bear weighed about 110 pounds, typical for its age, but the lid did leave scars and an abscess on its neck, DNR said. Once the anesthesia wore off, the bear was released back onto the wooded property in Hillman.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.