Italian Conservationists Grapple With Fallout From Fatal Bear Attack
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Loading... - Brigitte Martin
- 27 Apr 2023
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A bear-related fatality in Italy is igniting debate around the country’s 25-year-old bear reintroduction program.
The trouble began on April 7 in the north Italian province of Trentino. Andrea Papi, 26, was out on a training run on Mt. Pellar in the Brenta Dolomites when a bear attacked him, delivering wounds to his chest, arms, and neck, according to The Guardian. Papi’s family reported him missing when he didn’t return from his run. Authorities found him dead the next day.
The World Wildlife Federation notes that there have been seven bear attacks in Italy over the last 20 years. ExplorersWeb could not confirm last recorded fatal bear attack in the country before the one that killed Papi. But the death certainly marks the first such event since Trentino began a “bear re-wilding” program in the late 1990s.
The EU-funded program began with an initial genetic pool of 10 animals captured in Slovenia and released into the mountains of Trentino. The project, known as LIFE Ursus, now monitors a population of over 100 bears.
The bear behind the attack, a 17-year-old female known as JJ4, had already attacked a father and son in the Mt. Pellar region in 2020, the BBC reported. After the fatal attack in early April, Trentino provincial governor Maurizio Fugatti ordered JJ4 to be killed. Wildlife officials captured the bear, but on April 14 a local administrative court suspended the kill order after receiving an appeal from animal rights groups.
A potential cull
This brings us to the current moment. As of this writing, JJ4’s life still hangs in the balance. The Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection is expected to issue a ruling deciding between deportation or death on May 11. In the meantime, the Trentino re-wilding program is weathering the bad press generated by the fatal attack. Read More…
