Woman dies after being attacked and dragged away by bear in Romania

A 19-year-old woman died in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains after being attacked by a bear, Romanian news agency Mediafax reported on Wednesday.

She was dragged away by the wild animal while hiking in the Bucegi massif south of Brașov on Tuesday evening, a witness reported who then made an emergency call.

Less than an hour later, mountain rescuers and police came and recovered the woman's body.

They shot the bear, as it had also tried to attack the rescue workers, the report said.

Around 8,000 brown bears live in Romania's Carpathian Mountains, according to government estimates. The nation has the second-largest bear population in Europe, after Russia.

The animals, facing increasing urbanization and encroachment of human activities, have in Romania repeatedly attacked hikers, invaded farms and rummaged through rubbish bins in cities including Brașov in search of food.

After the latest death, Romania's Environment Minister Mircea Fechet called for higher shooting quotas for bears. As minister, he had demanded an annual quota of 500 animals, but after consultation with other institutions, this figure was lowered to 220.

Aggressive bears are repeatedly brought to other regions of Romania by the authorities but this method does not help, Fechet told the Antena 3 CNN radio station. It only leads to "shifting the problem from one county to another."