Bratislava: The Slovak government has approved a controversial plan to cull approximately 350 brown bears, nearly a quarter of the estimated population, following a deadly bear attack. The decision comes after a man was killed by a bear while hiking in a forest near the country’s capital.
Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist-nationalist government announced the decision after a cabinet meeting, citing increasing bear attacks that pose a threat to public safety. “We cannot live in a country where people are afraid to go into the forest,” Fico stated.
The government has now expanded emergency measures allowing bear shootings to 55 out of Slovakia’s 79 districts. Previously, legal protections for bears were eased, permitting their culling when they venture too close to human settlements. By the end of 2024, 93 bears had already been shot under the new regulations.
However, the decision has been met with strong opposition from environmental activists, who argue that the cull violates international commitments and may be illegal. Michal Wiezik, a European Parliament member from the opposition Progressive Slovakia party and an ecologist, condemned the plan as "senseless."
Wiezik accused the government of using bear culling to cover up its failure to manage human-wildlife conflicts. “Thousands of encounters between humans and bears occur annually without any harm,” he said, expressing hope that the European Commission would intervene.
The latest bear attack occurred on Sunday night near the central Slovak town of Detva. Police confirmed on Wednesday that a 59-year-old man was found dead in the forest with severe injuries consistent with a bear attack. He had been reported missing after failing to return home from a hike.
Local NGO Nový Čas told a Slovak newspaper that evidence of a bear den was found near the site of the attack.
Bears have become a contentious political issue in Slovakia as human encounters with them rise. In March 2024, a 31-year-old Belarusian woman fell to her death in northern Slovakia after being chased by a bear. A few weeks later, a video surfaced showing a large brown bear running through the city center of Liptovský Mikuláš, dodging cars and alarming pedestrians. Authorities later claimed to have shot the bear, but environmentalists disputed this, arguing that the killed bear was a different one.
Slovakia is home to a significant brown bear population, part of the Carpathian Mountain range that stretches through Romania, Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia.
