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France bear attack: 70-year-old hunter suffers serious injuries after encounter

France bear attack: 70-year-old hunter suffers serious injuries after encounter

Bear

A 70-year-old hunter in France got a serious leg injury after getting bitten by a bear.

In retaliation, he shot the bear in the Seix region of Ariege as per the local officials.

The arteries in the man's leg have been severely damaged in the incident and he has transported to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Toulouse.

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Despite getting rescued by the local gendarmerie, he is still "in a worrying condition."

They discovered the body of the bear a few metres from where they had found the hunter.

An investigation has been launched by the French Office for Biodiversity to examine the circumstances of the accident.

While the hunter was part of a local hunting association, the female bear was travelling with her cubs when it took place.

"Today, you can really see that cohabitation is complicated," said Christine Tequi, president of the Ariege department council.

The brown bear had nearly disappeared in this part of the world when France began a programme of reintroducing them, importing them from Slovenia.

Today, there are around sixty of them in the Pyrenees range, leading to increasing tensions with local farmers, because of the threat they pose to their livestock.

In 2020, three bears were illegally killed in the Pyrenees: two of them in Spain and one in France. The French government has committed to replacing any bear killed by a man.

(With inputs from agencies)