Sky News A fisherman has been bitten to death by a beaver after trying to take its photograph.
The man was on a fishing trip at Lake Shestakov in Belarus with two friends when they spotted the animal on the side of the road.
He stopped so that he could take a picture but as he approached the beaver it pounced on him, biting him in the thigh.
His friends attempted to stem the flow of blood from the wound but the animal’s bite had severed a main artery and the man, who came from Brest, bled to death.
Beaver attacks are rare and according to experts those animals that do go for humans are usually rabid.
However, they are not unheard off.
Earlier this week a video was posted on YouTube showing a man in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow, running away from a beaver who charged at him as he was filming in the area.
Last year in the US two girls were mauled by a beaver in a lake in Virginia as they swam. They suffered serious bite and scratch injuries. A man was also attacked in New York and an elderly woman in Washington.
In 2003 in Belarus a farm manager and farmhand were bitten by a rabid beaver as they tried to chase it from a barn. They survived the attack.
Beavers are the second largest rodents in the world.
http://news.sky.com/story/1076746/beaver-bites-man-to-death-in-belarus-attack