The accident of a brown bear killing a man in the Khabarovsk region has stirred fears among dwellers, mainly in the small villages and communities near forests.
Although people of these regions are familiar with seeing bears while wandering in forests, collecting mushroom, or during hunting rounds, yet the recent behaviour the bear raised serious concerns.
Local media outlets reported a man, who went out for mushroom collection, had been killed by a brown bear near the victim's village.
A local man, who saw the body, said this time the bear didn't attack the man to defend itself, but to kill and eat.
An expert of bears' behaviors said this is one of the rare cases where a bear preys a human. He explained that these big animals do not attack humans usually, and what happened is an unfamiliar behavior. After the accident, the hungry bear was caught and killed by the forest's guards.
The scene of bears grouping near garbage containers has been terrifying people recently. According to experts, this attitude is driven by many factors such as the lack of suitable natural environments, the weather conditions that prevented the growth of sufficient quantities of mushrooms that meet the bears' needs, along with fires that eradicated wide forest spaces in that region.
All these factors pushed bears to search for food in the human communities. These animals are known for their strong sense of smell that may lead them to food in houses or wastes by following odors.
The accident that took place on August 12 was not the first this month. On August 8, an old woman who went out to search for mushroom in the forest was chased by a bear. The old lady hid in a swamp and tried to intimidate the animal with scary sounds, but it stood still. The old woman spent a day and a half in the swamp until she was found and rescued.
