A 400-pound male black bear was found dead against a root wad in the Current River on Sunday.
Now, Missouri game officials will do some detective work to find out what happened.
"Some fishermen yesterday morning spotted the bear stuck in a root wad about 7 or 8 miles below Van Buren," said Mark Wilcoxon, conservation officer with Missouri Department of Conservation. "I didn't even know if it was going to be a bear. The last three dead-bear calls turned out to be wild hogs."
But this one was definitely a bear.
Wilcoxon said the people who found the bear dragged it to their camp, where game officials decided what to do with it.