After weeks of attempts to stun and capture the bear, Bavaria's environment ministry announced over the weekend that Bruno could be shot. Three Bavarian hunters took matters into their own hands.

German officials confirmed that Bruno had been killed at 4.50am near the town of Zell in southern Germany. "The shooting has happened - the bear is dead," said Manfred Wölfl, the Bavarian government's bear specialist.

Officials said the bear, which has been commuting since early May between the mountains of Italy, Austria and Germany, was a risk to humans.

"It's not that we don't welcome bears in Bavaria. It's just that this one wasn't behaving properly," Otmar Bernhard, an official with Bavaria's environment ministry said. "The bear kept wandering into populated areas. Its death was regrettable. But we didn't have much choice."

"This animal didn't just kill when he hungry. He had a lust for killing," Anton Steixner, an official from South Tirol, said, dismissing those who had emailed him in protest at Bruno's peremptory death as "fanatics".

Environmentalists who had been campaigning to save Bruno - the first bear to wander into Germany for 170 years - reacted with fury.

"It's incomprehensible," Heike Finke, spokeswoman for Germany's Wildlife Alliance told the Guardian. "Other countries like France, Romania, Austria and Italy manage to co-exist with bears. But three weeks after the first one turns up in Germany we have to shoot it dead. It's so frustrating."

She added: "I have to go and lecture developing world countries about how they should save their elephants and tigers. I haven't got much credibility as a German when we kill our only bear. It's embarrassing."

"This is the most stupid of all solutions," Hubert Weinzierl, the head of Germany's Wildlife Protection Association, said. "It's a tragedy for nature protection in Bavaria."

A team of Finnish hunters had spent two weeks trying to capture Bruno. They gave up last Friday after their attempts to stun and capture him failed and their dogs collapsed with exhaustion.

Bruno rambled into Germany last month. Technically known as JJ1, he was part of a programme in northern Italy to reintroduce the animal into the Alps. The 100kg (220lb) bear had not harmed humans - but had been spotted several times.

Over the weekend three mountain bikers watched him go for a swim. An Austrian motorist also encountered the nocturnal Bruno last week after the bear jumped down from the low wall of a reservoir, clipped a wing mirror, and ran off.

Otherwise, Bruno's behaviour appears to have been normal. He had killed sheep and rabbits and looted beehives for honey. The elusive bear's odyssey, meanwhile, had kept the attention of German media despite wall-to-wall coverage of the World Cup. Some observers had even speculated that Bruno might have been heading for Berlin - the venue for the World Cup final on July 9, and would have made a better mascot than the current incumbent, an unloved lion called Goleo.

Bavaria still intends to honour the bear it has killed. Bruno will be stuffed and exhibited in Munich's Museum of People and Nature, Mr Bernhard said, refusing to answer further questions.