He’s the Houdini of bears. A 3-year-old male brown bear known as M49 beat the odds and broke free from captivity just hours after being captured in Italy on Sunday. The furry escape artist wa… ...

Italian Twitter is following M49's escape with baited breath, and users appear to be on the side of the fluffy fugitive. The hashtag "#fugaperlaliberta," which means "#escapeforfreedom" in Italian ...

Published Jul 17, 2019 at 11:44 AM EDT Jul 17, 2019 at 11:44 AM EDT ...

M49 is part of a project called Life Ursus, which has been working to reintroduce brown bears to the forests of northern Italy since the 1990s after the population was all but exterminated by hunters.