A 55-year-old man has died after being attacked by a brown bear while foraging for mushrooms in a Slovakian forest. The bear severed one of the victim's main arteries with a single swipe of its paw, according to rescuers.
Emergency services located the man swiftly using a helicopter, but the challenging terrain hampered rescue efforts. In a Facebook post, emergency services stated: 'Unfortunately (the) man succumbed to injuries despite the efforts of rescuers.'
Slovakia is home to an estimated 1,300 brown bears, which primarily inhabit mountainous regions and dense forests. The brown bear, Europe's largest land predator, has a population of 17,000 to 18,000, mostly concentrated in the Carpathian Mountains spanning several countries including Slovakia.
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, and five others were injured by a bear in Liptovsky Mikulas the following day.
