A 19-year-old tourist was fatally mauled by a bear in Romania last week—and now the country has authorized the killing of almost 500 bears. The woman was hiking with her boyfriend on July 9 when they were attacked, CBS News and People report. Both of them made calls to emergency services before the attack to report the animal was chasing them. "She was terrified," says the head of a local search and rescue organization. "You can tell, she was screaming: 'The bear is getting closer and closer!'" Soon after, he says, the boyfriend "told us that the bear grabbed the girl by one leg and was dragging her ... at some point, he didn't see what he did with her. The bear dragged her from the path and threw her 120 meters [nearly 400 feet] into the valley."
Searchers went to the valley floor and found the woman dead, but could not retrieve her body because of the bear's proximity to it. The bear ultimately attacked the rescuers as well, and was killed. Romania has Europe's biggest population of brown bears, which can stand 7 feet tall and hit speeds as high as 30mph. Over the past two decades, 26 people have been killed in the country and 274 others severely injured by the animals. In an emergency session of parliament Monday, lawmakers adopted legislation calling for 481 bears to be culled this year in an effort to control what they say is an "overpopulation." Last year, just 220 were killed. The population is believed to number around 8,000. (Another Romanian tourist survived her encounter with a bear.)
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