"The married couple went to the district near the airport to walk their dog, where a bear attacked them. The man died, and the woman was taken to a hospital in serious condition. The animal also tried to kill her, it bit her limbs," Viktor Ivanov, a local park ranger, was cited as saying by online news portal Tomsk.ru.
The bear was tracked down a couple of hours after the attack and shot dead, Ivanov was cited as saying.
"Now we are trying to determine whether or not any force had been used against it earlier, whether it was injured, or provoked in any way," Ivanov said. Most likely, he said, the bear had just been hungry.
"The bears haven't managed to store up enough fat in time for their hibernation, they're hungry, and they use any opportunity to find nourishment. That's why we recommend that people avoid going into the forest," Ivanov told Tomsk.ru.
This marks the first death from a bear attack in the Tomsk region this year.
