Clips from the rescue operation show the bear wobbling and growling on a car bed, clearly under the influence of the hallucinogenic honey.
Mad honey – “deli bal” in Turkish – is formed when bees collect pollen and nectar from rhododendron bushes that contain gray notoxins, a group of neurotoxins. Unlike for humans, the poisons can be directly fatal for animals. In Turkey, people use the bitter honey as a recreational drug and traditional medicine.
The bear was taken to a veterinarian where it is now being cared for, and in a few days the cub is expected to be released back into the wild, according to local authorities.
Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture has asked residents via Twitter to come up with a name for the bear cub.
“Never seen anything like it in Sweden”
– Bears can eat a lot of different things, but I have never heard of anything like this here in Sweden, says predator expert Benny Gäfvert to SVT.
When asked if Swedish bears are at risk of ingesting food that could have an impact, Gäfvert explains that at this time of the year, the bears mostly devote themselves to eating huge amounts of blueberries.
– We know that a bear can eat up to 184,000 blueberries in a day. Then you can ask yourself if they don’t get quite heavy in the stomach. That’s probably the closest I can think of.
See more from the predator expert in the clip below.