The Guardian,Thursday July 24, 2008

Up to 30 hungry and desperate bears have attacked and eaten two men in Russia's wild far eastern region of Kamchatka, and have trapped a group of geologists at their remote site.

The bears - apparently starving - killed the men last Thursday, Russian agencies reported. The bears had surrounded a local platinum mining company. Both victims worked at the mine as security guards.

About 400 geologists and miners are now refusing to return to work, afraid of further attacks. Attempts by local officials to fly to the scene by helicopter and shoot the bears have so far failed, because of bad weather, agencies reported.

Yahoo News wrote: LOS ANGELES - A woman mauled by a bear in rural Kern County underwent 10 hours of surgery and was expected to recover, her neighbor said Wednesday.
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Allena Hansen, 57, was "lucid, active and probably pretty sore" after undergoing surgery Tuesday for serious cuts to her head and face, said August Dunning, who called her hospital room Tuesday night and spoke to her son. Dunning said he could hear his friend in the background.

"She's fine. She's talking," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

At the family's request, the hospital would not release the woman's condition or other information, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center spokeswoman Roxanne Moster said Wednesday.

Wildlife trackers using dogs hunted the bear on Wednesday. One tracking hound was slightly injured after midnight in what might have been an attack by the animal, Kevin Brennan, a wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said at a news conference in Ontario.

The attack took place in the Piute area, near the little community of Caliente, on scrubland south of Sequoia National Forest about 85 miles north of Los Angles.