Shot in Trentino

“Problem bear” dead just hours after shooting order

(Bild: APA/dpa/Horst Ossinger (Symbolbild))

Just a few hours after a shooting order was issued, the female bear that allegedly attacked a French vacationer on July 16 was killed. A team from the Trentino Forestry Corps had located the animal in the woods above the village of Padaro di Arco using its radio collar and shot it, it was reported. The female bear "KJ1" had been traveling with three cubs.

A few hours earlier, the governor of Trentino, Maurizio Fugatti, had issued a decree for the killing of the problem bear. At the same time, Fugatti had repealed the two identical decrees that had been suspended by the regional administrative court in recent days. With the new decree, the governor of Trentino ordered the specimen to be shot "immediately".

"Cruel and arrogant"
Animal welfare organizations reacted indignantly to the killing of KJ1. "Fugatti has shown himself to be cruel and arrogant," protested Michela Vittoria Brambilla, a member of parliament and former tourism minister and president of a parliamentary commission for animal welfare. The Italian animal protection association LNDC announced a lawsuit against Fugatti. The latter had issued the decree at night in order to prevent animal rights activists from appealing against the killing order in court.

The Italian newspaper "Il Tempo" published a photo of the dead bear:

Italian Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin also reacted critically to the killing of the bear. "Killing individual bears is not a solution to the problem. I understand the population, but today we are experiencing the effects of a mistake made in the past due to the careless exploitation of bears in Trentino for tourism 25 years ago. One way out is certainly sterilization, and we are working on it. However, as Environment Minister, I strongly reiterate that killing bears cannot be the solution," he said in a statement.

6000 signatures were collected in four days against the growing number of bears in Trentino in Italy. The petition was handed over to the municipality of Val di Sole in Trentino to organize a referendum on the issue of bears, according to local media reports.

Trentino wants to shoot up to eight bears a year
In April 2023, a female bear fatally injured a 26-year-old jogger in Caldes in Trentino. Trentino recently approved a draft law aimed at curbing the population. The bill provides for the possibility of killing up to eight animals per year. According to the latest estimates, the number of bears there is more than 100.

In Italy, the debate about the coexistence of bears and humans has intensified since the death of the Trentino jogger. Animal rights activists have repeatedly called for people to be made more aware of wild animals or for wildlife corridors to be set up. According to the province of Trento, the number of bears in the area has increased massively since the start of the EU resettlement project "Life Ursus" 25 years ago. Instead of the planned 50, around 100 specimens have settled in the area.