Starving bears resort to digging up coffins and eating human bodies in Russia



Starving bears in northern Russia have resorted to digging up graves in cemeteries and eating bodies.

A scorching summer has destroyed the bears' natural food sources of forest berries and mushrooms, forcing them to look elsewhere.

Russian officials in the republic of Komi, which straddles the Arctic Circle, said that brown bears on several occasions had dug up coffins in rural cemeteries in a desperate search for food.

Scavengers: Desperate brown bears in Russia have resorted to digging up human bodies in cemeteries and eating them

Two women in Vezhnya Tchova reported spotting the a figure they thought was wearing a fur coat leaning over a grave.

But when they approached, they realised it was a bear eating a human body and discovered the victims' clothes thrown across other graves.

The women screamed in panic and frightened the bear away, according to Moskovksy Komsomolets.

The starving bears have even resorted to attacking humans, after a youth was mauled in Syktyvkar, the capital of Komi.

Simion Razmislov, vice-president of Komi's hunting and fishing society, told The Guardian: 'They are really hungry this year. It's a big problem.

'Many of them are not going to survive.'

Last summer was Russia's hottest on record, with raging forest fires and droughts wiping out woodland and crops.

Masha Vorontosova, of WWF Russia, said that the bears were natural scavengers and had been attracted by a 'supply of easy food' kept cool by being buried underground.

'The story is horrible. Nobody wants to think about having a much-loved member of their family eaten by a bear,' she said.

Russia has between 120,000 and 140,000 bears. Wealthy gun enthusiasts have wiped out most of the large males in Kamchatka, eastern Russia, and Chinese poachers also kill them for their claws.

The government is considering legislation to ban hunting during the winter mating season.