Brown bears are protected by the 1979 Berne Wildlife Convention. Photo: Matteo DeStefano/iStockphoto
Italy's bear culling plan The northern Italian province of Trentino said it would kill eight bears a year after a series of attacks on people.
“We want to slow down the growth of the bear population, to guarantee the safety of people,” said Roberto Failoni, member of the Trentino government in charge of forests.
But Michela Brambilla, chair of the Italian inter-parliamentary group on animal rights, called the move a “terrorist” attack on bears that could be avoided by better care of the environment.
Ms Brambilla told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the province should do more to educate locals and tourists on how to behave safely in the mountains.
“It would be enough, for example, to place signs informing tourists [about the danger of bears] and put garbage cans so that bears do not eat garbage left in the forest. Instead, they only think about shooting plans,” she said.
The spat has sparked a long-running debate about how to manage local bear populations while keeping people in the mountain region safe.
< p> In July, judges at the Council of State in Rome ruled to suspend a killing order for two bears in northern Italy.
One of the bears, nicknamed JJ4, killed runner Andrea Papi while running. in the Brentian Dolomites. Another bear, known as MJ5, attacked a hiker in the same area a few weeks ago.
Judges ruled that brown bears are protected under the 1979 Berne Wildlife Convention and that “culling represents a last resort” . control their population.
The Italian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature said: “Very dangerous bears are extremely rare and unpredictable. Each case must be carefully assessed so that annual culling quotas cannot be determined as envisaged in the new plan.”
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