Man Dead In Belarus After Rare Beaver Attack [VIDEO]

A European man has died after being attacked by a beaver he was attempting to photograph while on a fishing expedition.

The unidentified man was a 60-year-old former Belarus service member. He bled to death after the beaver bit him twice on the thigh, reportedly severing an artery. The incident occurred near Minkovich in the Brest region of southwest Belarus.

According to the Daily Telegraph, friends who were with the man tried to bandage his leg and find help from a doctor in a nearby village but the man died from blood loss before help could arrive.

"It was early morning and already light when they saw a beaver by the road, which was unusual because beavers are nocturnal," said Sergei Shtyk, deputy head of the local wildlife inspectorate in an interview with the British newspaper. "One of them went up to be photographed with it, and the animal attacked him and bit him twice, cutting an artery in his thigh, before running away."

Beaver populations in the country have reportedly doubled in the last five years. There are an estimated 80,000 beavers in Belarus.

Beavers are not normally aggressive, but they are powerful creatures, said Sergei Shilinchuk, deputy head of Brest's environmental protection committee.

TIME reports a few instances of beaver attacks occurring in the U.S., including a narrow escape by a pair of sisters at a Virginia lake and reports of an elderly woman being mauled by a beaver in Washington State.

Earlier this week a Russian YouTube user posted the video below of beaver charging him. He was knocked down but escaped.