June 8, 2017
(AFP) - A hiker in the Austrian Alps was fatally gored on Wednesday when a cow charged at her, local police and media said.
The victim and a friend were walking their dogs in pasture land in the Tyrol region when the attack happened, the daily Tiroler Tageszeitung reported.
"One or several cows" charged, a police source told the Austria Press Agency (APA), killing the local hiker while her companion was unharmed.
The incident recalls the 2014 death of a 45-year-old German holidaymaker, gored by a cow in another Tyrolean valley while walking in a group that included children.
After her death, the woman's husband and son sought 360,000 euros ($405,400) from the cow's owner in a civil case which has not yet been decided.
That case has upset the Austrian farming community which fears a legal precedent could be created in the mountainous region which is a popular tourist attraction.
Summer tourism accounted for 20.8 million hotel nights in the Tyrol region last year,a 5.5 percent increase over 2015 and not that far short of the 26.8 million total the prosperous Alpine region enjoyed in the winter skiing season.
The exact circumstances of Wednesday's incident were not immediately known.
