A farmer in Russia has killed a wild wolf with his bare hands after it attacked his horse and killed his two dogs. The incident happened in the town of Novotroitskoye, in the east of Russia, within Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region.
The whole terrifying incident was caught on CCTV.
In the footage, the man can be seen carrying a torch when the wolf attacks him. The pair struggle on the ground with the wolf biting the man before it is eventually strangled to death. During the encounter, the man repeatedly punched the animal as he fought for his life in the freezing snow.
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The killing of the two dogs and the attack on the horse had occurred earlier in the day and the man had been searching for the wolf in the night using the torch that later became a handy weapon.
The man later posted a picture showing him holding up the body of the wolf.
While he was bitten and scratched, he suffered no life-threatening injuries, though he did later require a rabies inoculation as a precaution.
The wolf is now being tested for rabies as it is believed that the disease could have caused the animal to behave erratically and aggressively. Vaccinations against rabies have also been given to farm animals across the region for fear that the animal, if infected, could have spread the disease.
It is highly unusual for wolves to attack human beings even in times of extreme hunger.
Some however, have put the blame on local farmers for causing a situation where wolves are forced to enter human habitations as a result of the destruction of their natural habitats. A villager of the town even went as far as to say that the farmer himself was responsible for the wolf attack:
"The woods are being destroyed and burned down, so wolves are losing their usual prey. This is entirely man's fault… It's like the wolves have been left homeless, this is why they are getting out of the woods."
The story of the wolf attack on the man in the east of Russia comes just a week after another story emerged from the far-north of Russia where a Jack Russell terrier was killed after attacking a wolf who was later seen on CCTV, stalking a 10-year-old boy and his friends who were playing on a farm.
Deaths from wolves are extremely rare in the modern era and, in both the Soviet Union and Russia since 1920, there have only been 7 recorded deaths from wolf attacks. In medieval times however wolf attacks were more common, though still very unusual.
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