A woman who was attacked and badly injured by a brown bear in south Bulgaria was reported as stable, although her condition remained serious and she had suffered serious and extensive trauma, private Bulgarian television channel bTV reported.

On July 14, two sisters ventured in the forest near Malka Arda in the Rhodope Mountains range looking for mushrooms when they stumbled across a brown bear. The incident occurred at about 9am between the villages of Malka Arda and Oryahovets in south Bulgaria, in the municipality of Banite.

One of the women managed to escape but the other one was cornered by the animal and attacked, suffering several "serious blows". The woman was taken by a paramedic unit to a hospital in Smolyan, the report said.

The injured woman was reported to have "nearly her entire scalp missing" as a consequence of the attack. Her sister had started yelling and pelting the bear with rocks before the animal eventually lost interest and disappeared into the woods. She then called the paramedic unit, which took the woman to the emergency ward. 

Local residents believe that there are more than 280 bears in the area, but experts in the field say that the exact number cannot be determined. According to Galyan Minchev, head of the regional environmental inspectorate, the process to determine the exact number of bears was very complicated and difficult.

The Bulgarian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) is a subspecies of the brown bear (Ursus arctos), and found across northern Eurasia. The brown bear is also known as the "common brown bear", and colloquially by many other names.

The animal is widespread in Bulgaria. Bears are found on Vitosha Mountain near Sofia, as well as Rila, Pirin and Rhodope ranges, the Lozenska Mountain and Bulgaria's spine, the massive Stara Planina range. The Bulgarian brown bear is a protected species, and their killing is authorised only if they have been proven to attack humans.