Slovakia backs plan to shoot 350 bears after man killed in attack

The Slovak cupboard has accepted a plan to shoot round 1 / 4 of the nation’s brown bears, after a man was mauled to demise whereas strolling in a forest in Central Slovakia.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist-nationalist authorities introduced after a cupboard assembly that 350 out of an estimated inhabitants of 1,300 brown bears can be culled, citing the hazard to people after a spate of assaults.

“We won’t reside in a rustic the place individuals are afraid to go into the woods,” the prime minister informed reporters afterwards.

A particular state of emergency permitting bears to be shot has now been widened to 55 of Slovakia’s 79 districts, an space that now covers a lot of the nation.

The federal government in Bratislava has already loosened authorized protections permitting bears to be killed in the event that they stray too shut to human habitation. Some 93 had been shot by the top of 2024.

The plans to shoot much more have been condemned by conservationists, who stated the choice was in violation of worldwide obligations and might be unlawful.

“It is absurd,” stated Michal Wiezek, an ecologist and MEP for opposition occasion Progressive Slovakia.

“The Atmosphere Ministry failed desperately to restrict the variety of bear assaults by the unprecedented culling of this protected species,” he informed the BBC.

“To cowl up their failure, the federal government has determined to cull much more bears,” he continued.

Wiezek argued that 1000’s of encounters a 12 months handed with out incident, and he hoped the European Fee would intervene.

Slovak police confirmed on Wednesday {that a} man discovered useless in forest close to the city of Detva in Central Slovakia on Sunday evening was killed by a bear. His wounds have been in keeping with an attack.

The 59-year-old man had been reported lacking on Saturday after failing to return from a stroll in the woods.

He was discovered with what authorities described as “devastating accidents to the pinnacle”. Proof of a bear’s den was discovered close by, a neighborhood NGO informed Slovak newspaper Novy Cas.

Bears have grow to be a political situation in Slovakia after a rising variety of encounters, together with deadly assaults.

In March 2024, a 31-year-old Belarusian girl fell right into a ravine and died whereas being chased by a bear in northern Slovakia.

A number of weeks later a big brown bear was captured on video operating via the centre of the close by city of Liptovsky Mikolas in broad daylight, bounding previous automobiles and lunging at folks on the pavement.

The authorities later claimed to have hunted down and killed the animal, though conservationists stated later there was clear proof they’d shot a unique bear.

Atmosphere Minister Tomas Taraba stated on Wednesday there have been greater than 1,300 bears in Slovakia, and that 800 was a “adequate quantity”, because the inhabitants was rising.

Nevertheless, specialists say the inhabitants stays kind of steady at round 1,270 animals.

Bears are frequent throughout the Carpathian mountain vary, which stretches in an arc from Romania via western Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Poland.