When a bear appears in Germany, it is usually not far before it is declared a “problem bear”. This fate befell Bruno the brown bear in 2006. After more than 170 years, Bruno was the first wild bear on German soil – and was released for shooting after just three days by the then Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber (CSU). Bruno must have been looking for food, killing sheep and plundering beehives and rabbit hutches. Stoiber himself made the “problem bear” a dictum: “When the experts say it’s an absolute… problem bear, the only solution is to eliminate it, simply because the danger is so great.”
Now a wild bear is out and about in Bavaria again these days. He also killed two sheep near Rosenheim and injured a third animal, which then had to be put down. And that was after Gaia the bear – Bruno’s biological sister, as DNA analyzes showed – injured and killed a jogger in northern Italy in early April. Only about 120 kilometers away from Bavaria. The she-bear has since been caught, and a court has prohibited the shooting – for the time being. But with the new bear tracks in Germany, it didn’t take long for the debate on how to deal with the presumed “problem bears” to take place. Shoot or let live?
Politicians will probably have to ask themselves this question more often. Because the bear population in Germany will increase, the bear expert Christopher Schmidt assumes this in an interview with the star: “We should prepare ourselves and take measures now, especially with regard to educational work in the population. Because the bear will not tune in to us.” Schmidt is spokesman for the Bear Foundation, an animal welfare organization dedicated to the welfare of wild animals like bears and wolves.
The environmental organization WWF estimates that around 17,000 wild bears live in Europe. Most of them live in Romania, primarily in the Carpathians. At times, brown bears were almost exterminated in Europe because humans have taken up more and more space and brown bears have been deliberately hunted for years. That is why they now enjoy a protected status through EU regulations such as the Bern Convention.
How best to deal with animals is a common point of contention between animal and environmentalists and politicians. The government primarily wants to protect its own population, which is why Romania proposed this Friday to allow more bears to be shot. The Romanian environment minister, Barna Tanczos, said in early April that too many people had died as a result of animal attacks. There were 14 deaths in Romania between 2016 and 2021 and 154 injured. The Bavarian Minister of the Environment Thorsten Faithr (free voters) also described the safety of the people as an absolute priority after bear tracks were sighted there. “In an emergency, all measures can be considered,” he said in Munich on Thursday.
Wild bears are not stuffed animals. That’s why society must act to avoid fatal incidents in particular, says animal rights activist Christopher Schmidt: “Conflicts always arise when people invade a habitat that isn’t their own or vice versa. It’s not the fault of the people or the wild animals .” Therefore, society should learn to live with bears again if it is interested in protecting wild animals.
That starts with enlightenment. For example, anyone who enters a national park in the United States where bears are staying will be informed by signs and flyers: “You are now in bear country.” You can also read online on the park’s homepage at any time how to behave towards wild animals, what to look out for when staying overnight and how park visitors should store their food. Because bears’ noses are seven times better than dogs’, they can smell food miles away.
Similar measures are also being taken in other countries where the wild animals are more common. Slovakia, for example, uses bear-proof rubbish bins, according to Christopher Schmidt: “This has reduced incidents by 50 percent.”
Also in Eastern Europe there are specialized bear response teams that can be called upon around the clock in the event of sightings. They have the professional know-how and the technical equipment to be able to decide individually how to proceed with bear sightings. A role model for Germany, says Schmidt, because in this country nobody knows who to call in the event of an incident. At best, this approach would also be coordinated at EU level – a wild bear knows no national borders.
One of the most important things, however, is that the population is informed. Most people are taught as children how to behave in the event of a thunderstorm. Similarly, you should be informed about wild animals, says Schmidt: “Bears have individual characters and are very intelligent. That’s why they don’t like to enter into conflicts because they know that an injury can mean death for them.” If you meet a bear, keep calm and give the animal enough space to retreat. But the expert advises not to approach the bear, because it is usually just as excited as humans.
The former Bavarian Prime Minister Stoiber sees his decision of 2006 confirmed after the bear incident in Italy, he told the “Münchner Merkur” last week. The “bad incident” shows “unfortunately in a terrible way how right the experts were at the time”. Today, with these precautions, some shots could perhaps be avoided.
Sources: Federal Ministry for the Environment, National Park Service Yosemite, WWF, “Deutschlandfunk”, “Münchner Merkur”
