Bears Tumble Down Spanish Mountainside After Male's Attack on Mother

A Spanish mother bear survived a vicious attack by a male, and a resulting tumble down a mountainside, as she defended her cub recently, with the dramatic scene all captured on camera.

Footage by Claudio Sordo Velasco shows the mother standing between the male and her cub before the male attacks. Eventually, the two fall down the mountainside.

Local wildlife officials said the adult bear died from his injuries, but that the mother survived. She and the cub were sheltering in a cave, they said, and would be provided with food.

Sexually selected infanticide has been documented in brown bears, whereby the cubs of a former dominant male are killed in an effort to trigger oestrus – a period of fertility – in females. Credit: Claudio Sordo Velasco via Storyful