Brown bears attacked a mushroom picker and a hiker in forests in Slovakia this weekend. The hiker had to be treated as an outpatient in hospital. And in southern Germany, wild boars have caused panic and chaos in a restaurant and on a busy terrace.
Both incidents involving the Slovak brown bears took place in the Liptov region, at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. In the same region, another bear injured five people in the residential area of a small town in mid-March. That bear was tracked down and shot over a week later.
The hiker was walking with his wife and dog on a hiking trail near the village of Pribylina on Sunday afternoon when the bear unexpectedly attacked the man and injured his legs. After the incident, the couple fled to a nearby mountain refuge and waited for the forest service's regional bear team to arrive.
On Saturday, a Slovakian mushroom picker near the village of Stranavy encountered a bear in the dense undergrowth of a mountain forest, which then attacked him. The man shot the animal with his gun and injured the bear. He himself was unharmed.
The bear team that was called to help, which was also warned in this case, feared that the shot bear could be dangerous to other people. Therefore, the team searched the forest area together with hunters. The bear also attacked one of the hunters there. When he also fired a shot, the animal fled into the dense forest. Authorities have issued a warning to avoid the forest area.
According to official counts, approximately 1,100 to 1,200 wild brown bears live in Slovakia.
In Austria, permits expired last weekend near the Czech border to shoot two wolves that had gotten too close to people last month and were barely chased away. But since then no sightings have been reported and the shooting permit expired after four weeks.
The deadline for photographing the other wolf that came within 50 meters of a family in early March has also passed since last Saturday afternoon. That animal has also not been seen in the area since the dangerous incident.
And in Mitwitz, Germany, near the Czech border, a panicked stray wild boar on the terrace of a busy restaurant caused chaos. The animal had run through a glass door, injured itself and knocked over a 64-year-old visitor who was also injured. Furniture inside the restaurant was also damaged. The animal's blood got scattered here and there, but eventually the wild boar found its way out.
Another wild boar was injured when it ran into the garden fence of a neighboring property. Here too, the house wall was smeared with blood. The subsequent search for the animals by police and hunters was unsuccessful. The material damage caused on the terrace and in the restaurant is estimated at around 15,000 euros in total.