Recently released footage from the northern Castilla y Leon region of Spain shows a male brown bear brutally attacking a female with a cub. The pair fight for approximately two minutes before falling down a sheer cliff. The female reportedly survived the encounter and is being sought by local wildlife officials while the male died of his injuries.
"As happens with other animals, male bears have an instinct to kill cubs with the aim of mating again. They look for female bears with cubs that they can kill," the head of the Brown Bear Foundation Guillermo Palomero told AFP.
"The female enters an oestrus period two or three days after (the cub has been killed) so the male bear can copulate with her," he said, describing such attacks as "very violent".
