A Beaver killed a man in Belarus, after the man tried to take its picture, according to a report from Sky News.

The man, who was on a fishing trip with some friends approached the animal, which bit him on the leg, severing a main artery and causing him to bleed to death.

The unusual nature of this story has drawn a lot of attention to it on the web, and serves as a reminder that nature (and the animal kingdom in particular) can be quite unpredictable. The report cites unnamed “experts” who say that beaver attacks are rare and that “those animals that do go for humans are usually rabid”.

Interestingly, since the incident was reported, other tales of agressive beavers have surfaced.

Sky News itself points to a video of a beaver attack in Russia:

A report from Daily Freeman back in 2010 describes beavers getting agressive in the Catskills. Jay Braman reported at the time:

On July 13, at least one beaver attacked and bit two swimmers and two people tubing in the creek about a mile upstream from the Shandaken hamlet of Phoenicia. Reports indicate that two boys between the ages of 10 and 13 were been bitten — the younger boy twice and the older boy seven times.

Around the same time, the Calgary Sun put out a report: Killer Beaver Has Dog Walkers On Guard in Red Deer, saying:

On Monday, the city’s parks department received a complaint from Alberta Animal Services that a beaver in Three Mile Bend in northeast Red Deer had fatally attacked a dog while it was swimming in the water, said parks superintendent Trevor Poth.

Poth said it’s believed the same beaver is responsible for injuring another dog that was also swimming at the time a couple weeks earlier.

Beavers are territorial creatures, who will not hesitate to defend their homes.