Unexpected Encounter with a Bear near Laatsch

Miscellany.

On the 12th of this month, Franz Thoma, half an hour from the village of Laatsch, judicial district of Glurns, while cutting wood, was suddenly surprised by the sight of an 8- to 9-year-old female bear and forced into self-defence by her life-threatening approach. A blow with a wood axe stunned the roaring predator, which was probably debilitated by hunger; several strikes with a tree branch knocked it to the ground, while the 15-year-old Paulmichl — who, along with two women, watched the rare duel from some distance — fetched a hunter whose shot extinguished the last remains of life. The courageous Thoma is anything but of Herculean build, being rather of small and slender stature; nor will it be easy to find a similar example of such an overpowering of a full-grown bear accomplished without actual weapons.