Beaver kills fisherman
By Yuras Karmanau, The Associated PressMay 30, 2013
A beaver swims in a pond in the forest near the village of Lovtsevichi, near Minsk, Belarus. A fisherman was bitten and killed trying to catch a beaver to have his photograph taken with him.
Photograph by: Sergei Grits, The Associated Press, The Associated PressThe fisherman wanted his photo shot with a beaver. The beaver had other ideas: It attacked the 60-year-old man with razor-sharp teeth, slicing an artery and causing him to bleed to death.
It was the most serious in a string of beaver attacks on humans in Belarus, as the rodents have turned increasingly aggressive when confronted by humans after wandering near homes, shops and schools.
"The character of the wound was totally shocking for us medical professionals," recalled village doctor Leonty Sulim. "We had never run into anything like this before." Once hunted nearly to extinction in Europe, beavers have made a comeback as hunting was banned or restricted and new populations were introduced.
In Belarus, a former Soviet nation between Russia and Poland, the beaver population has tripled in the past decade to an estimated 80,000, according to wildlife experts.
That has caused beavers increasingly to wander into populated areas, creating more grounds for conflict.
The Belarusian emergency services said that this year, for the first time, they have received a rash of reports of aggression by beavers, which can weigh up to 30 kilograms and stand about a metre high.
Officials have responded to some calls by sending out crews to drive away the animals, often by spraying them with water from a firehose.
The fisherman, who has not been named, is the only person known to have died from a beaver attack in Belarus.
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A beaver swims in a pond in the forest near the village of Lovtsevichi, near Minsk, Belarus. A fisherman was bitten and killed trying to catch a beaver to have his photograph taken with him.Photograph by: Sergei Grits, The Associated Press, The Associated Press
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