A hiker on his way to the site of a World War II-era plane crash at a densely forested region of northern Greece encountered an angry brown bear and was promptly shoved off the edge of a steep cliff and to his death in a 2,600-ft deep ravine on Tuesday, CBS News reports on the latest in a string of fatal incidents involving ursine encounters in central Europe over the last few years.

Christos Stavrianidis and friend Dimitris Kioroglou were trying to map out a new, more accessible route to the wreck of the military plane that was rediscovered just last year, hoping to make it easier for others to visit when they came into contact with the honey-crazed apex predator. “I suddenly saw a bear which attacked me,” Kioroglou told outlet NewsIT. “My dog delayed it a few seconds. I used pepper spray, and it headed to where my friend was and knocked him into the ravine.”

Panos Stefanou, spokesman for Greek wildlife group Arcturos, told state media outlet ERT TV that the bear was likely protecting itself from the men and dog, calling the shove “defensive behavior, not an attack. The bear is trying to push back what it sees as a threat,” pun maybe sort of intended.

Stavrianidis is the third soul on Team Bear’s kill count in Europe since 2024 but interestingly the second in a row to have met his end with an assist from gravity rather than mauling. A man was found dead of wounds consistent with a bear attack in Slovakia in April of last year, just weeks after a Belorussian woman visiting the same country plunged to her death down a ravine while being chased by one. The bear was then chased off by a warning shot fired by an avalanche rescue crew as it neared her body. Both bear-gravity incidents mark a reversal of one that ended Virginia human hunter Lester Harvey Jr, who was killed last year when either he or one of his companions shot a bear who had climbed up at tree to escape them and then crushed Harvey after it fell.