Konstantin and Tatiana have been attacked by the bear round 5pm on March 15, when the sunshine was quickly fading. The younger couple, aged 29 and 31, recognized solely by their first names in native media reviews, have been Belarusians residing in Poland. Nonetheless, through the winter, Konstantin labored as a ski teacher within the well-liked resort city of Jasna in neighboring Slovakia. The winter season was coming to an finish, and on his time off, he and his girlfriend determined to go mountaineering beneath the 4,718-foot Na Djame mountain within the Slovak Nationwide Park surrounding the resort.
It isn’t precisely clear what occurred subsequent, however newspaper report It’s recommended that when the couple encountered the bear, a younger male weighing roughly 265 kilos, they ran in separate instructions. Konstantin, now alone, tries to name Tatiana. When he obtained no response, he referred to as mountain rescue. It was dusk when Tatiana’s physique was lastly discovered with the assistance of a search canine. She apparently fell right into a ravine and suffered a deadly wound to her head.
Like earlier bear deaths in Slovakia and throughout Europe, this incident prompted accusations that conservationists have been defending bears on the expense of human security. In 2021, a 57-year-old man was attacked and killed by a bear in the identical nationwide park, sparking tensions locally over the bear’s presence and requires its culling. However because it stands, looking the animals is prohibited by each Slovak and European regulation, and consultants are vocal {that a} lack of schooling, quite than a deal with conservation, is the primary reason behind the issue. are doing.
“That is the place the unwarranted statements from the media and politicians actually began,” mentioned Robin Rigg, a British-born zoologist. Rigg, an skilled on massive carnivores, moved to Slovakia in 1998, two years after he grew to become president of the Slovak Wildlife Affiliation. Preliminary reviews recommended Tatiana could have been killed by the bear itself quite than the autumn, Rigg mentioned. “And it has been mentioned publicly, really by somebody from the Ministry of the Atmosphere, that it was a predatory assault. However we do not see any proof of that.”
The animal was close to the physique when rescuers discovered Tatiana, however “that does not imply the bear was attempting to kill and eat her,” Rigg mentioned. He burdened that his conclusions have been preliminary as a result of he had not seen all of the proof. However he has seen a number of the ugly pictures leaked to the media and “none of them confirmed any indicators of being consumed.” The puncture marks discovered on the younger girl’s legs “appear to be claw marks, however they don’t seem to be indicators of feeding,” he mentioned.
“Predatory assaults in Europe are extraordinarily uncommon and never widespread anyplace else on this planet,” Riggs mentioned. The incident occurred in an space the place bears are recognized to hibernate, simply as bears are waking up. “And what can generally occur is that the bear reacts aggressively to guard itself. I believe that is what almost definitely occurred on this case. Two folks. “They have been stunned that somebody confirmed up,” Rigg mentioned.
Sadly, such a nuance just isn’t usually lined in information protection of bear assaults. “In reality, statistically, you are extra more likely to have an allergic response to being struck by lightning or being stung by a bee,” Rigg says. And nails. It goes again to an instinctive worry that has existed in us since prehistoric instances. ”
Claims that Slovakia’s bears are nothing to be feared have been additional undermined when footage of the animals scampering by Liptovski Mikulás’s excessive avenue was launched simply two days after Tatiana’s dying. The animal was filmed charging in the direction of pedestrians, who then jumped over a fence and fled. Nobody was critically injured, however video I caught a virus. “And now,” Rigg says. “These two incidents occurred inside just a few kilometers of one another, inside 48 hours of one another. So he tends to take a look at them collectively and ask, ‘What ought to we do about bears?’ .”
This challenge has develop into more and more urgent lately, not solely in Slovakia however all through Europe. The brown bear has been hunted to the brink of extinction in lots of international locations, and in 1992 he was granted “strictly protected” standing underneath EU regulation. In most areas the place brown bears exist, bear populations are growing, with an estimated 17,000 bears right this moment. Bears stay in rural areas throughout the continent. The restoration of this keystone species is being hailed as a significant victory by biologists and biodiversity consultants, however it isn’t with out its challenges.
Within the Pyrenees Mountains, which straddle the French-Spanish border, French and Spanish farmers’ unions are fed up with injury to crops, beehives and livestock. Called to reduce the number of bears. Within the northern Italian area of Trentino, the place bears have been reintroduced as a part of an EU-funded rewilding mission, resentment simmered over the tragic dying of path runner Andrea Papi in April 2023. rose to the floor. To the shock of native scientists, Trentino’s right-wing populist president, Maurizio Fugatti, proposed killing half of the roughly 120 rigorously cared for bears in a single day.
However consultants say culling bears is much from the easiest way to forestall future tragedies. Within the wake of Andrea Papi’s dying, the native pure historical past museum invited Tom Smith, a bear administration skilled from Brigham Younger College in Utah, to debate how such points are being dealt with in North America. I gave a lecture. In an indication of how tensions locally are operating excessive, the museum took the weird step of posting armed guards on the entrance.
Smith recommended in his speak that the answer is comparatively easy: “What is going on on right here just isn’t essentially a bear drawback, it is a human drawback.” Not like in North America, the place folks in bear habitat have grown up with bears, Europeans residing close to areas the place populations have not too long ago recovered do not essentially know how one can behave. However fundamental bear consciousness coaching, like the sort taught “in kindergarten” in some Canadian provinces, may considerably cut back the variety of harmful and deadly encounters. be.
Mr. Smith runs the North American Human Bear Battle Database. The database incorporates detailed data on 2,175 historic assaults and incorporates “250,000 knowledge factors.” “What we have realized from finding out these occasions is that 60 % of them are utterly pointless and will have been prevented if folks had acted in a different way,” he advised the viewers. advised. In an interview just a few days later, Smith spoke particularly about Papi’s dying, telling WIRED: Let me let you know, this was utterly preventable. ”
Sadly, this seems to have been the case in Slovakia as properly. “Sadly, the route they selected was extraordinarily harmful,” Rigg mentioned. “They should not have been there as a result of it is not an authorized mountaineering route and it is a part of a extremely protected park. Plus, it is a limestone space and we’d count on Denning bears to stay there. The encounter occurred round nightfall, when crepuscular creatures like brown bears are usually extra energetic.
