Five people have been injured in the second bear attack in Slovakia in three days, officials have said, prompting a northern town to declare a state of emergency and authorities to propose reclassifying the animals\u2019 status on the protected species list.<\/p>\n
A 49-year-old woman was treated in hospital for an injury to her shoulder, and a 72-year-old man for a cut to his head, after the incident on Sunday in Liptovsk\u00fd Mikul\u00e1\u0161, near the Tatra mountains, local authorities said.<\/p>\n
A 10-year-old girl and two further adults suffered scratches and bruises, authorities said, while a couple pushing their child in a buggy were \u201clucky to escape unharmed\u201d. People were asked not to leave residential areas. Authorities on Monday said the bear was still at large and six armed patrols were hunting it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bear has been pushed into uninhabited zones by rescue and security forces where emergency teams \u2026 have orders to eliminate it,\u201d the town hall said, calling on residents to exercise maximum caution especially in the early morning and evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cHunters will patrol in the at-risk area, police patrols have been strengthened and brown bear emergency teams from all over the country have been ordered to our city and surroundings. A thermal imagine drone is also being deployed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are a town between mountains, but still a town. We cannot allow a bear to attack five people in the centre in broad daylight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mobile phone footage posted on social media showed the bear charging along a road and over a zebra crossing as terrified pedestrians scattered, then bounding across a green space and lunging at a man hurriedly climbing a fence to escape it.<\/p>\n
The incident came a day after a 31-year-old Belarussian woman, identified by local media as Tatiana, died while trying to evade a brown bear in the Low Tatra mountain range near the same town.<\/p>\n