A she-bear with her cubs attacked a 67-year-old man who was picking mushrooms in west-central Slovakia on Saturday. The injured man was taken to hospital. – I came down the hill and a female bear ran out with two cubs and immediately attacked me – the injured man said about the incident.
The incident took place on Saturday in the village of Kanianka in the Trenčín Region, in a difficult-to-access and heavily forested area. A helicopter was sent for a 67-year-old man. When rescuers arrived at the scene, he was conscious. He was transported to hospital with wounds to his arms and legs. According to preliminary information, the mushroom picker was supposed to scare the bear, which felt threatened and attacked him.
– Everything happened very quickly. I came down the hill and a female bear ran out with two cubs and immediately attacked me, the 67-year-old said about the incident. – I didn't see her, she was about 10 meters away from me. I protected my head, I fell to the ground, I had a basket on my back and she bit it off, he added.
A bear attacked a mushroom pickerTVN24, Reuters
An appeal to refrain from hiking in the forest
The police appealed on social media to local residents to refrain from going out in the same forest area.
A special intervention team was sent to the site to analyze the incident and assess whether the bear regularly appears near human habitations and poses a threat to residents and animals. Based on such an analysis, a decision can be made to eliminate the problematic individual.
At the beginning of the month, a bear killed a mushroom picker
This is another brown bear attack in Slovakia recently. At the beginning of October, the animal fatally injured a 63-year-old man picking mushrooms near Liptovský Mikułaš. It was the second such accident in the history of Slovakia. The first one took place in 2021 also near this town.
The authorities in Bratislava want to regulate the bear population and are demanding at the EU forum that the regulations regarding their protection be relaxed. Environment Minister Tomasz Taraba believes that bear attacks are related, among other things, to the growing population of this species. However, the upward trend is not confirmed by scientific research.
How to behave when encountering a bear?
When we encounter a bear in the forest, it is better to be very careful. Here are the rules to remember:
- Walk away quietly and calmly. Don't run away so that the bear doesn't treat you like prey. Don't climb a tree either, as the bear does it much better.
- If you come across a cub, back away especially carefully. There may be a female nearby that can be very dangerous in defending them.
- Do not feed bears or leave food scraps or packaging that may interest them. Bears are particularly dangerous when feeding.
- Don't approach them to take a photo or record a video. The flash of a flash or a flashlight may irritate them.
- If you come face to face with a bear, gently unfasten the hip belt of your backpack so that you can take it off – this may attract the predator's attention. However, do not make sudden movements and control his behavior. Don't look him in the eye.
- It is especially dangerous when a bear is watching you and has its ears pushed back. Then be especially careful, do not make sudden movements, retreat very slowly.
- If the bear does not lose interest in you, lie down gently on the ground, tuck your legs in, and cover your neck and face with your hands. In most cases he will leave you alone, in the worst case he should scratch you at most.
Main photo source: Reuters