23:10, 4 January 2011

In Stavropol, bear bites cleaner of his cage to death

In the Zoo of Stavropol, which is situated in the Victory Park, this morning a bear has bit a human to death, said Boris Skripka, head of the Civil Defence and Emergency Department of the Administration of Stavropol.

At about 10:00 a.m. Moscow time, a 55-year-old employee of the Zoo was cleaning the bear's cage, when the bear was in.

The man forgot to lock the section of the cage, where the bear was driven for the time of cleaning, the "Interfax" reports.

The bear attacked the man; other employees tried to drive the beat away; however, when the ambulance arrived, the man was already dead.

He had been feeding the bear for five years.

According to Sergey Vedeneev, press secretary of the Victory Park, where the Zoo is situated, this was a rare accident, the first one during his 10 years of work there. "I don't know, what is usually done with animals in such cases," the RIA "Novosti" quotes him as saying.