A man was mauled to death while strolling through a forest in Central Slovakia, prompting the Slovak cabinet to accept a proposal to shoot about 25% of the nation’s brown bears.
Following a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist-nationalist government declared that 350 of the 1,300 brown bears in the estimated population would be killed, citing the threat to human safety following a string of attacks.
The prime minister subsequently told reporters, “We cannot live in a nation where people are scared to venture into the woods.”
Slovakia has expanded the scope of a special state of emergency that permits bear shooting to 55 of its 79 districts, which now includes the majority of the nation.
Legal protections have already been relaxed by the Bratislava government, enabling bears to be killed if they venture too near to populated areas. By the end of 2024, about 93 had been shot.
Conservationists denounced the plans to shoot even more, claiming the action violated international agreements and might possibly be illegal.
Michal Wiezek, an ecologist and MEP for the opposition party Progressive Slovakia, called it “absurd.”
“The Environment Ministry failed desperately to limit the number of bear attacks by the unprecedented culling of this protected species,” he stated.
“To cover up their failure, the government has decided to cull even more bears,” he added.
-Deeprows News
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.