Measures to contain the bear population

Romanian deputies amended the legislation regulating bear hunting.

Bogdan Matei, 16.07.2024, 14:00

It rarely happens that Romanian MPs have to interrupt their long summer holiday and come back to work for extraordinary parliamentary sessions. Monday was one of these rare cases, with deputies returning to work for a short while to approve new bear hunting quotas. The move comes after a recent tragedy in the mountains, when a 19-year-old young woman was mauled by a bear on a popular hiking route.

Already passed by the Senate last year, a bill initiated by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania stipulates that over 400 bears may be culled in 2024 and 2025. This targets mainly aggressive bears that attack humans and their goods. The counties where this is most often happening are Harghita, Covasna, Braşov and Mureş, all in the centre of the country. In Harghita alone, for example, gendarmes had to step in 231 times since the start of the year to chase the bears away.

Former minister and current senator from the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania Tánczos Barna, who initiated the bill, says the legislation is based on a scientific survey commissioned by the environment ministry to estimate the size of Romania’s brown bear population. Tánczos Barna:

“All surveys, including those conducted by ONGs, indicate a constant growth in the brown bear population in Romania. Romania’s brown bear population is not endangered, we need to take some steps as a precaution, as is the case in all EU member states with significant numbers of brown bears.”

In favour of the bill were the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, in opposition. The Save Romania Union, also in opposition, abstained, after several of their amendments were rejected. Diana Buzoianu, from the Save Romania Union, explains:

“The first amendment to be rejected is about the fact that, if hunting is what we want, then to actually solve the problem, the hunting quota should be the responsibility of the specialised staff. We won’t solve the problem through trophy hunting.”

In the meantime, the director general of the National Forest Authority Marius Dan Sîiulescu has ordered increased monitoring of the bear population in the forests managed by Romsilva, especially on tourist hiking routes. Hunters say, however, that without reducing the country’s bear population, they will continue to interfere with human habitats. Experts say that no tragedies were reported at high altitudes, because older bears, whose number is low, are behaving in a more natural way and withdraw from the path of humans. The problem is with younger bears, who are born in cultivated areas, and which are not afraid of humans and are used to finding food by raiding homesteads and harvests.