A bear has surprised utility workers in Canada by taking a snooze on an electricity pole.

 

A resident of Shellbrook, a rural community in the Saskatchewan province, alerted the local power company, and a crew was quickly dispatched. "By the time our crew got on site, the bear was already on top of the pole," spokesman Tyler Hopson from the SaskPower utility tells Canadian Metro newspaper. "He was awake initially, and got fairly comfortable it seems and decided to have a bit of a nap."

 

The SaskPower crew was worried about whether it would be able to get the bear back down without harming it, or bringing down the power in the local area, it said in a message on Facebook. In the end, the bear came down of its own accord - but not before it took a short nap. "He did manage to get down from the pole safely and is not injured as far as we know," Hopson says, adding the bear "didn't do any damage to the pole or cause any sort of power outage".

 

Bears are known to roam the sparsely populated Saskatchewan province. While they're not usually spotted on electricity poles, the local government has published detailed instructions on how to avoid conflict with black bears.