In 2011, Igor Tsyganenkov and his19-year-old stepdaughter Olga Moskalyova stopped at a wild spot along theParatunka River to retrieve a fishing rod they’d left behind. They’d beencamping near the village of Termalniy on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Thecountry there is famously beautiful—streams winding through birch forest, thesteam of geysers snaking from rugged hillsides, the whole view ringed withsnow-patched volcanoes. Much of the country is given over to national parks.Fishermen there had run into trouble in the past: the brown bears of the arealiked to snatch the fish they caught. Most years there were plenty of fish forboth species, but animals tend to choose the easiest method. It’s easier totake the catch humans have left hanging than to wade into the water and catchthe elusive fish. Usually this habit caused nothing more than scares and a lostcatch. The danger came from the close association bears were forming betweenpeople and easy food. Already, a few bears and a few people had been killed.

Igor was about to become another suchvictim. Among the reeds of the riverside, a brown bear appeared and attackedhim. He seems to have died quickly; his skull was shattered and his neckbroken. Perhaps the bear killed him with a single swat of its paw. Olga’s deathlasted much longer. She saw what happened to Igor and ran away. Running is thewrong thing to do when a carnivore is in a predatory mood: it seems like aninvitation to chase. The bear pursued. Once it had her down and was biting chunksout of her legs, Olga did something unusual. She phoned her mother.

“Mom, a bear’s eating me!” she said.“It hurts so much! Help me, Mom!”

Her mother, Tatiana, thought it wassome macabre joke, but then the tone of Olga’s voice struck her with fear. Sheheard growls—and crunching. Olga begged the bear to stop. The line went dead.

Tatiana frantically phoned Igor. Shegot no answer, of course, because he was lying dead some 200 feet from Olga.But Olga was still alive. She phoned again. The bear had come back, shesaid—with its three cubs. “They’re eating me,” she told her mother. The linewent dead again.

By this time Tatiana had phonedrelatives and police. It was obvious that no one could arrive in time to help,but what else could she do?

Nearly an hour after the first call,Olga phoned again. She was free to do so because the bears had gone to eatIgor’s body. She told her mother the pain was gone. “Forgive me foreverything,” she said. “I love you very much.” And the line went dead.

Igor’s brother and the police reachedthe remote site thirty minutes later. They found the bears feeding on Igor’sbody. Olga lay dead and partially eaten. Authorities brought in a team ofhunters, who tracked down and killed all four bears. It would be unwise toleave even the cubs alive, they said, in case they’d already learned the lessonof how to eat humans.