A recent attack of a walker by a bear in Asturias, Spain has left the community shocked. Luckily the woman concerned escaped with relatively minor injuries. While this incident should not be underplayed, the media reporting has not always been balanced. LCIE has published a fact-checking article that describes what happened and corrects some of the misinformation.

Even more recently, the death of a man in Slovakia with injuries consistent with a bear-attack was also reported in the international news as the first fatal incident involving a bear in the modern history of the country. While bear attacks remain very rare in Europe, fatalities occur most years in Romania. For more information on the danger posed to people by large carnivores see the FAQs on the EU Platform website “Are large carnivores aggressive to humans?”.