A fisherman in Belarus is dead after getting into a fight with a Beaver and losing, badly.  The victim bled to death before an ambulance could reach him and take him to hospital.

Fatal attacks by Eurasian Beavers are pretty much unheard of.  The victim is a 60-year old former military man who was fishing with friends near Minkovichi in the rapidly growing Brest region.

"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, the deputy head of the region's wildlife authority.

"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.”

The attack apparently severed the victim’s femoral artery.  His friends tried to stop the bleeding, but couldn’t.

Sergei Shilinchuk, deputy head of Brest's environmental protection committee, says Eurasian Beavers have "big teeth and immensely powerful jaws; it can cut down a tree three feet wide."  People have lost fingers before, but this was the first Beaver-related fatality he's heard of.

More than a match for a man’s thigh.  Respect nature!