MOSCOW — Spain’s King Juan Carlos I killed a tame 3-year-old bear that was plied with vodka during a hunting trip in Russia, a Russian hunting official said. A spokesman for Spain’s royal household called the accusation “ridiculous.”

The 330-pound bear, named Mitrofan, was raised in captivity. He lived in a forest camp in Vologda, 240 miles northeast of Moscow, the deputy head of the regional hunting service, Sergei Starostin, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

According to Mr. Starostin, who said he saw Juan Carlos when the bear was taken out of a cage at the hunting ground where he was shot in late August, Mitrofan was given four bottles of vodka mixed with honey. “Bears react to vodka the same way as humans,” he said of the animal’s state when it was shot.

The spokesman for the palace in Madrid, who asked not to be identified, said the claim was absurd. He declined to say whether he was referring to the shooting incident or the bear’s condition. Juan Carlos traveled to Russia on private business, the spokesman said, though he couldn’t confirm whether the king had been hunting. Juan Carlos, 68, became king after dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975. Juan Carlos’s grandfather, Alfonso XIII, left Spain after a 1931 election that was won by opponents of the monarchy. Vologda Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalyov set up an interdepartmental commission to investigate the bear’s killing, his press secretary, Yevgenya Toloknova, said by phone. She called the incident “unprecedented” and couldn’t say when the investigation would be completed.