A second killer bear has been hunted down in the Smolyan District in Southern Bulgaria in just three months.

The bear killed early Thursday morning near the village of Malka Arda, Banite Municipality, is believed to be the one that attacked two elderly women at the beginning of July, announced the Regional Environmental Directorate of the Smolyan District.

One of the women, 64-year-old Galya Dimitrova, was wounded severely and her life was saved only by the decisive and fearless reaction of the other woman, her sister, who managed to scare the bear away. The victim of the bear attack is still recovering in hospital.

The bear is male and weighs about 150 km. Its size and claws coincide with the wounds of the elderly woman, and the images taken by the so called “photo traps” in the area.

The permit for the hunting down of the killer bear was issued in July, after the above-mentioned attack, which was the second killer bear incident in the Smolyan District located in the Rhodope Mountains after in the late spring a 65-year-old man was killed by a bear and his body was found mutilated. The first killer bear was also shot down. The two incidents happened within a range of 30 km.

The Bulgarian Environment Ministry has ordered the resettlement of 8 bears from the Smolyan District into other faraway and unpopulated areas. This measure, however, has not been carried out year. Local people around Smolyan have complained that the density of the brown bear population in the region is twice as high as it should be.