He was surprised.
A hunter who was tracking wild boar in the town of Seix, in Ariège, was seriously injured on Saturday by a bear he then killed, we learned from corroborating sources.
While participating in a beat, the man was charged and then bitten by the bear.
He allegedly fired twice to defend himself.
According to the Ariège prefecture, the hunter seriously injured by a bear bite on the leg was evacuated to Foix hospital by helicopter and then transferred to the Toulouse University Hospital.
The high mountain gendarmerie platoon intervened to rescue a 70-year-old hunter, seriously injured in the femoral artery around 3:30 p.m., a source familiar with the matter confirmed.
According to the hunter's words, he was participating in a boar hunt with a group when he was attacked by a bear accompanied by her cubs.
The bear was found dead a few meters from where the hunter was rescued.
A judicial inquiry has been opened into the circumstances of this accident, said the Ariège prefecture.
"He tore off her calf"
“This is really what we feared.
Today, we can clearly see that cohabitation is complicated, ”declared the president of the Ariège departmental council, Christine Tequi (PS).
A danger, according to her, aggravated by "the increased presence of breeding bears" in the sector of the Couserans massif, where there are currently around forty plantigrades, she said.
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“I was a little further away, I didn't see what was happening but I heard the call on the radio.
The bear attacked him and grabbed his leg, ripped off his calf and injured his other leg as well.
One person managed to stop the bleeding until the arrival of help, ”confided to our colleagues from the Dépêche du Midi, one of the hunters of the association, present during the beaten.
“What was supposed to happen has finally happened.
It doesn't surprise me, they come closer and closer because there is nothing left to eat in the mountains.
But he shot him only to defend himself, ”continues the hunter.
The bear of the Pyrenees being threatened with extinction, France started in the 1990s a program to reintroduce bears from Slovenia.
Most live in the central part of the massif, especially in Ariège.