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Swedish hunter attacked by bear

TT/The Local
TT/The Local - [email protected]
Swedish hunter attacked by bear
The hunter was fine. The bear, not so much. Photo: Depositphotos

A Swede’s Saturday morning hunting expedition turned out a bit more exciting than expected.

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The hunter was attacked by a bear just outside of Klövsjö in the western Sweden province of Jämtland, Expressen reported. 
 
The hunter was able to shoot and kill the bear while under attack and escape unharmed. 
 
The incident was reported to local officials at 7.37am. 
 
“The bear was reportedly shot when it attacked a hunter. The hunter was unscathed. Police are on hand to investigate,” the local police district wrote on its website. 
 
 
The dead bear will be sent to the Swedish National Veterinary Institute (Statens veterinärmedicinska anstalt) for examination. 
 
Under Swedish law it is legal to hunt bear between August and October and in recent years this has been actively encouraged to help control growing numbers of the creatures.
 
Hundreds of brown bears are shot in Sweden every autumn as part of the cull, but the practice has also been met with criticism. The Swedish Species Information Centre announced in 2015 that the brown bear is once again at risk of becoming extinct, after previously dropping off the centre's annual 'red' watchlist.
 
The centre reclassified the brown bear as an endangered species, citing hunting as the primary cause of the declining population.  
 
Bear attacks on humans are relatively rare in Sweden, compared to the US, where on average two people a year die as a result of an encounter with a bear. By contrast, there have only been two fatalities caused by bear attacks over the last century in Sweden. 
 

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