Up to 426 animals: Romania wants to kill three times as many bears as in 2022

The Romanian government has proposed killing three times as many bears every year as last year to combat “overpopulation” of the protected species. According to the proposal presented on Thursday, up to 426 bears could be shot per year; last year there were 140. The proposal was immediately criticized by environmentalists.

According to an estimate by the Ministry of the Environment, there are currently some 7,500 to 8,000 bears living in Romania. From 2016 to 2021, there have been 154 bear attacks that killed 14 people and injured 158 others. According to the government’s proposal, hunters could shoot the animals in addition to “technical personnel”.

Environmental groups criticized the proposal as a license to trophy hunting, which is actually illegal. Romania banned this in 2016, but allowed the killing of hundreds of so-called sturgeon bears with special permits.

Greenpeace: “Cynical proposal”

The current initiative is a “cynical proposal to replace bear management with commercial hunting,” according to the Romanian branch of the environmental organization Greenpeace. The brown bear, which is common in Romania, is one of the 1200 protected animal species in the European Union.

Earlier this month, Environment Minister Barna Tanczos said of the bear attacks that “too many people had died”. It is “our duty to protect human life”.

Romania has the largest bear population in the EU. However, according to experts, the exact number of bears in the Carpathians is unclear because the country uses an outdated counting method. The results of a first more modern DNA-based census from 2021 are still pending. (sda/afp)