A 600-pound black bear was killed by a semitrailer in Missouri near the Arkansas border on Monday, The Associated Press reports.

“If he hadn’t taken that extra step, he’d still be alive today,” Paul Veatch with the Missouri Department of Conservation told KAIT-TV.

The AP adds that the semitrailer operator told police that he thought a cow had slammed into the side of his truck.

According to Veatch, moving the bear out of the road was a particularly gruesome task for one unlucky Missouri Department of Transportation officer.

“He had to do that with a log chain and pulled it with his truck,” Veatch explained to KAIT-TV.

Authorities eventually had to get a front end loader in order to move the 600-pound black bear into Veatch’s vehicle.

According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, black bears are native to the state, but they nearly went extinct during settlement. Now, the department says that they are making a comeback with approximately 400 bears, according to The AP, living in the southern part of the state.

Check out KAIT-TV’s gruesome photos of the removal operation here.