Driver swerves to avoid moose, hits bear instead

OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian driver who swerved his car on a rural road to avoid running into a moose hit a bear instead, authorities said on Thursday.

The driver spotted the moose on a country road near Hanestad, 225 kilometers north of Oslo, around midnight on Wednesday, and tried to go around the animal, not realizing that a bear was also nearby.

"The driver had lost a bit of speed as he tried to avoid the moose before hitting the bear," said Svein Erik Bjorke of the local wildlife authority, who was out in the forest searching for the wounded animal.

"We are currently tracking the bear and we have found traces of blood indicating internal injuries," he said.

The driver escaped uninjured while his car suffered some damage.

Norway's rugged mountains are sparsely populated and full of wildlife. The country, nearly the size of Germany but home to just five million people, has around 100,000 moose and 150 brown bears, authorities said.

(Reporting By Vegard Botterli; editing by Mike Collett-White)