A 57-year-old man has been killed by a brown bear in central Slovakia, for the first time in the country, according to the forestry service Lesie Slovenske Republiki.
The brown bear population in Slovakia has tripled in the last 20 years.
An autopsy confirmed that the man, from the Liptovska Luzna community, had been fatally injured by a bear, the service said on Facebook.
Twenty years ago, about 900 bears lived in the mountains of Slovakia. Today they reach 2,760 and the forest service has asked for their hunting to be legalized in order to control their population.
The environment ministry said DNA samples would be collected to locate the animal. There were five bear attacks last year, but none were fatal.
According to the website wwe.sme.sk, the traces of the 57-year-old disappeared after he went for a walk in the forest near the village of Liptovska Luzna, in the lowlands of the Low Tatras. “We found him face down next to a path. “He had injuries to his neck, abdomen, ribs,” said a friend, Matthew Bodor.
The website said this was the first recorded bear attack in Slovakia in at least a century.
