Romanian MPs approved a law to manage the country’s bear population, agreeing to triple the annual culling quota, according to Euractiv.
The new legislation was passed at an extraordinary session on Monday after a bear had killed a young woman in the Carpathian Mountains last week. The law increases the annual culling quota for 2024 and 2025 to 426 brown bears per year, up from the previous quota of 140.
The government also introduced a so-called “intervention quota,” allowing the killing of 55 bears in emergency situations, such as attacks on humans. Due to its controversial nature, the bill has been under discussion in Parliament for some time and was accelerated after the tragic death of a 19-year-old woman in the Carpathian Mountains.
The Carpathians in particular have one of the highest densities of bears, according to a study published last year by the Environment Ministry. The study also showed an increase in Romania’s bear population from about 5,900 to 6,500 in 2016 to the current number of 7,539 to 8,593.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu stated that the bear population was concentrated in certain areas due to lack of food, forcing them into populated areas. Meanwhile, NGOs argue that increased bear trapping is not a viable solution to overpopulation.
Challenging EU
Agent Green warned that Romania could have problems with the European Commission, as bears were a protected species in the EU. Meanwhile, the Conservation Carpathia Foundation emphasised that bear population management in Romania should include prevention, conservation of natural habitat, intervention measures, and targeted education to resolve conflicts in the short term.
WWF-Romania also expressed doubts about the efficiency of culling, according to Cristian-Remus Papp, Wildlife Programme Coordinator for WWF-Romania.
There are aspects without which, regardless of the laws we pass or the number of bears we shoot, we won’t solve the human-bear conflict in the long term.
He criticised the current prevention and intervention quotas and opposed the law that allowed “preventive hunting, including by foreign hunters who are not concerned with problematic bears, which are generally smaller.”
However, Alfred Simonis, the interim president of the Chamber of Deputies, assured that unlimited bear hunting would not be allowed in Romania and that hunting would only take place in high-risk areas.
