Russia’s hungry bears ransack graves for food

FAMISHED bears in northern Russia have resorted to digging up graves in cemeteries — and reportedly eating at least one body — after a scorching summer destroyed their natural food sources of forest berries and mushrooms, officials said.

The brown bears’ grisly habit is forcing locals in the Arctic Circle region of Komi to mount 24-hour patrols, protecting their families and livestock, with concerns the bears might get a taste for fresher human flesh, said Pyotr Lobanov, spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry.

Last summer was Russia’s hottest on record, with raging forest fires and droughts wiping out woodland and crops, forcing the bears to forage closer and closer to human settlements as the winter hibernation period approaches.

A top-selling daily newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, reported that one body was devoured in the village of Verkhnyaya Chova over the weekend.

Two visitors to the cemetery shrieked at the sight of the animal tearing into half-decomposed flesh, scaring the bear away, the paper reported.

Pets, goats and cattle have all fallen prey to the bears since the summer.