Brown bear seriously injures mushroom picker in Slovakia

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• A mushroom picker from Slovakia was attacked and seriously injured by a brown bear in a forest in the municipality of Kanianka.
• The 66-year-old suffered injuries mainly to his hands and legs.
• He is said to be conscious and out of danger.

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He mainly suffered injuries to his hands and legs, but is said to be conscious and out of danger. Despite his injuries, he was able to call the emergency services himself after the attack.

As reported by the TV news channel TA3 and public television STVR, the man had been picking mushrooms in the undergrowth of a wooded area belonging to the north-western Slovakian municipality of Kanianka and probably surprised the bear in the process. An STVR reporter suspected that the fact that he fended off the animal with his mushroom basket may at least have saved him from even more serious injuries.

Danger for people

The police called on people in the area to exercise caution. The brown bear task force of the state nature conservation agency is already on its way to investigate the incident.

According to an official count, there are around 1200 bears living in the wild in Slovakia. They normally avoid people if they notice them in time. However, attacks can occur in the event of surprise encounters or when mother animals see their cubs endangered.

At the beginning of October, one such encounter ended fatally for a mushroom picker. Since the beginning of the year, more than 40 so-called "problem bears" have been shot in Slovakia, which have repeatedly ventured into human settlements and even urban areas and were therefore considered a threat to humans. The shootings are politically controversial.