"It was strange that the bear ignored the tent with all the expedition food and went straight for the people."

© The Siberian Times



The brown bear was shot dead after straying into the area where Nikolay Maksimov, 22, was camping in RussiaNikolay Maksimov, 22, said he screamed in terror as he was grabbed by the wild animal in the Russian Far East.A friend of Nikolay, who was part of an international scientific expedition, tried to cling to his legs and screamed for help.Other members of the group, which traveled to remote Lake Kisi, woke and fired shots into the air to scare away the predator.After it released Nikolay, the beast was shot dead."I was asleep in the tent when the bear attacked," said Nikolay, as reported by The Siberian Times "It was pulling me into the taiga (forest) as other expedition members woke up."Vasily Kolodeznikov, director of the Institute of Natural Sciences, part of Russia's North-Eastern Federal University, said: "Expedition members who slept in other tents heard the screams and rushed out to help."They shot twice in the air, the bear got scared and let go of Nikolay."Then the bear was shot dead."He said:Nikolay, a postgraduate student at the university in Yakutsk, needed hospital treatment for a shoulder gash and scratches.He was airlifted from the remote site to Magadan.