A bear attacked a nine-year boy and devoured his right arm while  he was feeding the bear inside a cage in China on Sunday.

Doctors and China media said the accident happened when the boy was trying to push his arms through the bars to feed the bear when it got hold of the boy's right arm.

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Reports said this  happened at  the Pindingshan Hebin park in Heman province in central China.

The boy was rushed to a hospital at Pingdingshan Number 152, where the medical staff treated the boy whose whole right arm had to be amputated by the doctors.

Although bear attacks are rare, there were still a high number of bear-inflicted injuries recorded by the Journal of Emergency Medicine.

There were 162 reported bear-inflicted injuries in the United States between 1900-1985. This is equivalent to two reported bear-inflicted injuries per year according to the Journal.

Jeffrey Tittel, an environmental director of an organization based in New Jersey. said that bears are usually tame and docile and are afraid of people. He observed though that most bear attacks happen when humans have food.

He noted that although bears will avoid people, Tittel said that bears which have been exposed to people feeding them food see these people as a source of food and thus, can become aggressive.

"Ten years ago, we were spending over $2.5m (£1.6m) a year on bear education and now we are spending a 10th of that," said Tittel,.

Another animal expert pointed out that wild bears have become affected by global warming by not hibernating at all during the winter months.

This change of behavior is the reason in the increasing  number of man-bear conflicts.The expert said leftover foods of man also get their attention especially when these bears are brought into the houses of humans.

Tagsbear, global warming