Romania authorises killing of nearly 500 bears after death of 19-year-old woman

Romania’s parliament on Monday approved the culling of nearly 500 bears this year in a bid to control “overpopulation” of the protected species, after a deadly attack on a 19-year-old hiker sparked a national outcry.

Last week, local media reported that a 19-year-old tourist – identified by the Daily Mail as Maria Diana – was attacked and killed by a bear while hiking with her boyfriend.

“According to the information we have, the bear attacked the young woman on the trail, dragged her into the vegetation next to the trail and, somewhere in that vegetation, made her fall into a chasm and she fell in. The bear came down after her,” Sabin Corniou, the head of Romania’s mountain rescue service, told CNN’s Antena 3.

The bear was killed after apparently trying to attack rescuers.

According to the Ministry of Environment, Romania is home to the largest population of brown bears in Europe outside Russia, with 8,000 individuals.

Bears have killed 26 people and seriously injured 274 others over the past 20 years in the southeastern European country, the ministry said earlier this year.

After a young hiker was mauled to death on a popular trail in the Romanian Carpathians, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu summoned MPs from their summer recess to attend an emergency session of parliament.

In addition to passing legislation to control the brown bear population, Parliament observed a minute of silence in memory of the 19-year-old hiker.

The law passed Monday authorizes the killing of 481 bears in 2024, more than double last year’s total of 220.

Lawmakers have argued that bear “overpopulation” has led to an increase in attacks, while acknowledging that the law will not prevent attacks in the future.

Environmental groups have denounced the measure.

“The law solves absolutely nothing,” Calin Ardelean, a biologist with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), told AFP, saying the focus should be on “prevention and intervention” as well as “problem bears.”

According to WWF Romania, culls will not solve the problem unless measures are put in place to keep bears away from communities, such as better waste management or stopping people from feeding the animals.

In 2023, around 7,500 emergency calls to report the presence of bears were recorded, more than double the number from the previous year, according to data presented last week by Romanian authorities.

Earlier this year in Slovakia, a woman is dead after being chased by a bear through dense forest and mountainous terrain. Wildlife researchers had previously estimated that Slovakia’s bear concentration was second only to Romania in terms of prevalence.