A 55-year-old man has been killed by a wild brown bear while foraging for mushrooms in a Slovakian forest. According to rescuers, the bear severed one of the victim’s main arteries with a single swipe of its paw.
Despite swift location of the victim by an emergency helicopter, the challenging terrain hindered rescue efforts. Emergency services reported on Facebook: “Unfortunately (the) man succumbed to injuries despite the efforts of rescuers.”
Slovakia is home to an estimated 1,300 brown bears, primarily inhabiting mountainous regions and dense forests. The brown bear, Europe’s largest land predator, has a population of 17,000-18,000, mostly concentrated in the Carpathian Mountains spanning Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and Romania.
This incident follows two separate bear attacks in Slovakia earlier this year. In March, a Belarusian woman was found dead in the Low Tatras mountains, while five others were injured by a bear in Liptovsky Mikulas the following day, just eight miles away.
As previously reported, days after the woman’s fatal attack, a state of emergency was declared in a nearby town after a brown bear ramapaged through the streets, attacking and injuring five people.
A 49-year-old woman was treated in hospital for an injury to her shoulder, and a 72-year-old man for a cut to his head, local authorities said at the time. A 10-year-old girl and two further adults suffered scratches and bruises, authorities said.
