In France, a brown bear was shot after it attacked a 70-year-old man
A brown bear was shot in southwestern France after attacking a 70-year-old man while hunting a wild boar.
In an attack in Ariege, south of Toulouse near the border with Spain, a man was seriously injured in the leg. He was airlifted to a hospital where he is being treated.
Local media reported that an unnamed man fired two shots with a rifle, which killed the bear immediately after meeting the animal.
One member of the hunting group told the French news website La Depeche: “I was a little longer, I didn’t see what was going on, but I heard a call on the radio. The bear attacked him and grabbed his leg, ripped off his calf and injured him on the other leg as well.
“One person managed to stop the bleeding until help arrived.”
Another said bear attacks are becoming more common due to lack of food high in the mountains.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” an unnamed witness told La Depeche. “They are getting closer because there is nothing to eat in the mountains. He shot [the bear] just to defend himself. “
An investigation has been launched into the circumstances of the attack.
France began importing brown bears from Slovenia in the 1990s, when its own bear population in the Pyrenees was on the verge of extinction.
Fifteen years ago, France, Spain and Andorra agreed on a joint plan to repopulate the Pyrenees with brown bears, but only slowly for fear that more animals could endanger agriculture and tourism.
The numbers have declined as cutters and forest fires have encroached on the forest habitat of bears, and human encirclement has provoked bears over the years to react aggressively from time to time.
It is currently estimated that the Pyrenean population comprises about 40 bears that roam the long stretch of mountainous terrain along the border between France and Spain.
Bear attacks on livestock have increased in recent years, from a stable number of between 100 and 200 attacks per year in the Pyrenees to almost 400 in 2018.