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A MAN has been savagely mauled to death by a wild brown bear as he picked mushrooms in a forest in Slovakia’s latest attack.
The beast tore one of the victim’s main arteries with just its paw, the rescuers’ report claims.
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Despite an emergency chopper being able to locate the man in the tricky terrain, they were too late and couldn’t save him.
Emergency services said on Facebook: “Unfortunately (the) man succumbed to injuries despite the efforts of rescuers.”
It’s estimated there are around 1,300 brown bears in Slovakia.
They prefer to live in the mountains or dense forests.
The brown bear is considered the largest land-dwelling predator in Europe, with its estimated population being between 17,000-18,000.
Most of the beasts live in the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and Romania.
In March of this year a woman was left dead and five others injured after two separate bear attacks just hours apart in Slovakia.
A Belarusian woman was found dead in the Low Tatras mountains on Saturday while five others were injured by a rampaging bear just eight miles away in Liptovsky Mikulas the following day.
A 49-year-old woman was treated for an injury to her shoulder while a 72-year-old man has suffered a cut to his head.
A 10-year-old girl and two other adults also sustained scratches and bruises, local authorities said.
The townspeople were advised not to leave residential area as the animal was still at free.
Six armed patrols were hunting the bear but the police eventually drove it out of the town and back into the forest.
The authorities added that the thermal imaging and intense patrol of the high-risk areas were in place.
The town hall said: “The bear has been pushed into uninhabited zones by rescue and security forces where emergency teams … have orders to eliminate it.
“We are a town between mountains, but still a town. We cannot allow a bear to attack five people in the centre in broad daylight.”
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