This is the moment a stunned Mexican resident films a very skinny and scraggy-looking bear walking around a village area.

The scene was filmed in the community of El Ranchito in the municipality of Santiago in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon last week.

In the video, a motorist stops their vehicle to film the scraggy-looking bear calmly walk past and continue on its way.

With skinny legs and a scrawny neck, the malnourished animal appears more like a big dog than a fearsome stocky bear.

After being widely shared on social media, netizens expressed their concern about the bear’s wellbeing and called on the local authorities and Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) to help the animal.

According to the news site Excelsior, due to loss of habitat, animals are approaching inhabited areas more frequently in search of food.

The authorities have advised, when faced with encounters such as the one in the video, that residents report the sighting to the emergency services to activate PROFEPA’s protocols for dealing with such matters.

It is unclear if the authorities or any local animal welfare groups have tried to track down the skinny bear to offer assistance.