A 65-year-old man has been killed by a bear in the Rhodope Mountains in Southern Bulgaria. According to Commissar Kiril Hadzhihristev, head of the Regional Police Directorate of the Smolyan District, it is absolutely certain that the victim, Nikola Shikov from the village of Kutela, was attacked and killed by a bear Monday afternoon.

Shikov is believed to have been out in the local forest collecting firewood when he fell pray to the killer bear. Local people have discovered his mutilated corpse later. They have traced the blood tracks to the den of the animal.

Emil Stoyanov, mayor of Kutela, has explained that the residents of the village are in a state of horror, and are afraid to leave their homes...