Romania’s parliament on Monday permitted the culling of just about 500 bears this 12 months in a bid to regulate the protected species’ “overpopulation” after a lethal assault on a 19-year-old hiker sparked nationwide outcry.
Final week, native media reported {that a} 19-year-old feminine vacationer — recognized by the Day by day Mail as Maria Diana — was attacked and killed by a bear whereas she was mountaineering together with her boyfriend.
“From the knowledge we’ve, the bear attacked the younger lady on the path, dragged her into the vegetation subsequent to the path, and someplace on this vegetation dropped her right into a chasm and fell there. The bear got here down after her,” Sabin Corniou, the top of Romania’s mountain rescue providers, advised CNN’s Antena 3.
The bear was killed after it reportedly tried to assault the rescuers.
Romania is residence to Europe’s largest brown bear inhabitants outdoors of Russia with 8,000, based on the setting ministry.
Bears have killed 26 folks and severely injured 274 others during the last 20 years within the southeastern European nation, the ministry stated earlier this 12 months.
After the younger hiker was mauled to dying on a preferred path in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu summoned lawmakers again from their summer time recess to attend an emergency session of parliament.
In addition to adopting laws to regulate the brown bear inhabitants, the parliament held a second of silence within the 19-year-old hiker’s reminiscence.
The regulation adopted Monday authorizes the culling of 481 bears in 2024, greater than twice final 12 months’s complete of 220.
Lawmakers argued that the bears’ “overpopulation” led to a rise in assaults, whereas admitting that the regulation is not going to forestall assaults sooner or later.
Environmental teams have denounced the measure.
“The regulation solves completely nothing,” World Wildlife Fund biologist Calin Ardelean advised AFP, arguing that the main target needs to be shifted in direction of “prevention and intervention” in addition to so-called “downside bears”.
Based on WWF Romania, culls is not going to treatment the issue until measures are put in place to maintain bears away from communities, similar to higher waste administration or stopping folks from feeding animals.
In 2023, about 7,500 emergency calls to sign bear sightings have been recorded, greater than double the earlier 12 months, based on knowledge introduced final week by Romanian authorities.
Earlier this 12 months, in Slovakia, a lady died after being chased by a bear by means of dense forest and mountainous terrain. Wildlife researchers beforehand estimated that the focus of Slovakian bears was second solely to Romania by way of prevalence.Â