New Delhi – A lazy bear killed a couple in a forest in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh last weekend and then spent hours eating their remains in a horrific attack that wildlife guards say was unusual for the species. While lazy bear attacks on humans are relatively common, they are not generally known to feed on human flesh. The attack took place on Sunday when a man and his wife were returning home from a temple visit early in the morning. The sluggish bear first attacked the woman as the couple was passing through the forest of Panna National Park, killing her. Her husband was killed when he tried to save his wife. Departmental Forest Officer Gaurav Sharma, according to the Indian network NDTV, said the attack took place around 6:30 a.m. after the couple went to “pray in a temple” in the area. Eyewitnesses told the Times of India that a crowd of villagers gathered at the spot and tried to scare the bear by firing into the air, but did not move and continued to eat the victims for three hours until the foresters arrived. “This is very unusual,” Neha Sinha, a conservation biologist and author, told CBS News. “Usually, sluggish bears eat honey and insects.” Lazy bears are found in India and other South Asian countries, including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. They are about the size of an American black bear and can weigh more than 300 pounds. A man follows a wild bear after entering a house and injuring a person on the outskirts of Srinagar on December 3, 2012 in Srinagar, India. Waseem Andrabi / Hindustan Times / Getty Escalating deforestation is depriving species, including bears, of their natural habitat and bringing them closer to cities and villages for at least two decades, and violent human-animal conflict has increased in India. “There is generally a conflict in the mahua era, when people go to pick flowers and bears feed,” Sinha told CBS News. The mahua is a tree that grows in many parts of South Asia and blooms in late spring and early summer. Flowers are rewarded by both humans and lazy bears. Residents often go out into the woods to collect flowers for sale this season. An archive photo on March 22, 2014 shows Indians collecting mahua leaves from a tree in a forest in Mirzapur, about 54 miles east of Allahabad, India. Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP Forest officials told Indian media that the bear’s unusual behavior may be due to rabies infection. Uttam Kumar Sharma, field director at Panna National Park, was quoted by India Today as saying that “the bear appeared to be infested with rabies and was in its final stages”. Regional officials said the couple’s family would be given 400,000 Indian rupees ($ 5,100) in compensation for their loss.
