Hunter shot down a bear roaming with her cubs in France

Officials say a 70-year-old man shot a brown bear in southwestern France after the animal attacked and injured the man.

The man is said to have fired two shots with a rifle at the female bear, who was walking with her cubs at the time, killing the animal immediately.

Local media report that the man suffered serious leg injuries and was taken to hospital in Toulouse.

Police are now investigating the incident on Saturday afternoon.

The man, part of a local hunting association in the Seix region of Ariège, had been bitten several times by the bear, injuring the arteries in his legs, police said.

The AFP news agency reports that a source close to the case said the man was in a serious condition.

Police stated they responded to an emergency call at about 15:30 local time (14:30 GMT), and when they reached the scene, they found the dead bear just meters from where the hunter was injured.

A member of the same unnamed hunting association told the local news website La Depeche that he heard a call for help on the radio using the group during the hunt and made his way to the scene of the attack.

“One person managed to stop the bleeding until help arrived,” he said.

A city council official in Ariège, Christine Tequi, said such attacks were “what we feared”.

“Today you can really see that living together is complicated,” she told AFP.

France began to reintroduce brown bears into the Pyrenees after the number of animals declined in the 1990s.

But the move has sparked demonstrations from local farmers, who stated the bears pose a threat to their livestock.