Bears kill seven people in Russian region

A Russian woman has been fatally mauled by a bear ​in her garden, the seventh such death in her Siberian region this month, state investigators said.

A video released by investigators in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region some 3,000 km (1,864 miles) east of Moscow showed them walking through a wooded area and inspecting the corpse of the brown bear which carried out the attack.

The state TASS news agency said the bear had killed the 51-year-old woman in the village of Voznesenka after she saw the creature trying to get into ​a pen in her garden where she kept domestic animals.

"The bear lunged at the woman. The predator was shot dead by a neighbour of the deceased," ​TASS reported.

Experts cited in Russian media said that bears, which have attacked humans in at least 11 regions across Russia this year ⁠and killed at least 20 people, have been forced to look further afield for food this year because an early and dry spring meant there was a lack of ​berries for them to feed on in September.

People are also guilty of leaving food waste out in the open where it attracts bears and of ignoring safety rules, the experts ​said, while in at least one region the authorities stand accused of failing to keep bear numbers down.