Here's another article from the Scotsman:
Claims king shot drunk bear dead dismissed as 'ridiculous'
CIARAN GILES IN MADRID
THE Spanish royal palace yesterday dismissed reports that King Juan Carlos shot dead a drunken bear during a hunting trip in Russia as "ridiculous".
However it seemed to edge away from an initial flat-out denial that he had killed a bear.
We have no comment to make because this story is totally ridiculous and the source is sensationalist," said a palace spokesman. Tabloids and the yellow press are sensationalists but an official? He added that the palace would neither confirm nor deny that the king had been hunting during a trip to Russia in August or whether he had shot a bear.
On Thursday, the palace denied that the king, a known hunting enthusiast, had killed a bear - drunk or sober. However, the spokesman said yesterday: "I don't know if he was hunting or not. It was a private visit on the invitation of President (Vladimir) Putin."
Vyacheslav Pozgalyov, governor of the Vologda region northeast of Moscow, has launched an inquiry after he received a letter from the region's deputy hunting chief, Sergei Starostin, claiming a bear - named Mitrofan - had been fed honey mixed with vodka and released near to where the king was said to be hunting. Mr Starostin wrote that local authorities turned the hunt into a "disgusting fraud".
Mitrofan, who Mr Starostin described as "a joyful bear", was taken from his home at a local holiday resort and brought to the hunting place where he was "fed with vodka mixed with honey and pushed into a field".
"A heavy, drunken animal became an easy target. His Highness, Juan Carlos, took Mitrofan out with one shot," Mr Starostin reportedly wrote in the letter.
This article
: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1558872006
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I must say I find it quite strange and a bit undiplomatic for the spokeswoman to call the Russian official
sensationalist. Also how can the spokeswoman deny the story and call it "totally ridiculous", if she cannot even deny that the King was hunting in Russia?