In east Europe, a dispute over bears is forcing politicians to arbitrate between environmentalists and hunters. Although the forests of Romania and Slovakia account for just 5.5 per cent of Europe’s full woodland, they are home to more than half of Europe’s brown bears. The 2 countries’ governments are deploying this argument to request that the protection position of the brown bear be reduced, as has been done for the wolf.
Their proposal, supported by Croatia, Czechia and Finland, was presented at the gathering of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on June 22nd and 23rd in Luxembourg.
Romania is home to Europe’s largest population of brown bears outside Russia (although there is no consensus on the exact numbers). In April 2025, Romania’s Ministry of the Environment, Water and Forests presented a report which concluded that, based on a sampling programme launched in 2023 to extract DNA from hair and faeces, there were between 10,419 and 12,770 bears in Romania. Assuming a population of 11,500 bears in Romania and 2,500 in Slovakia (according to its government), these figures are 3 times the level considered optimal by the authorities, which is 4,000 and 800 animals respectively.
“The government constantly repeats this figure of 4,000 bears, but we have not seen any technological paper explaining how it was calculated”, biologist István Imecs, vice-president of the task Bag Association, complains to El Confidencial. “For a policy of this magnitude, there should be greater transparency.”
The brown bear is presently listed as a strictly protected species in Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. If the brown bear were reclassified from “strictly protected” to “protected”, this would have implications “for both ecology and governance”, says Cristian-Remus Papp, manager of wildlife and scenery at the Romania branch of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).
From a conservation perspective, argues Papp, specified a decision “could weaken the precautionary framework that has enabled populations of large carnivores in Europe to recover and stabilise over fresh decades”.
Changing the legal position would not address the causes of the conflict between humans and bears, adds Papp. At its root the conflict is due not so much to the bears’ protected position as to contingent factors, specified as “access to food sources of human origin; ineffective waste management; and the deficiency of preventive measures and effective response”.
Rather than being framed as “protection versus security”, the debate should focus on “the effectiveness and proportionality of the measures”, believes Cristian-Remus Papp.
Bears: the fresh wolfs?
The proposal calls for brown bears to be managed in the same way as wolves. So how comparable are the animals? There are similarities between the 2 species, “but besides crucial ecological and management differences”, says Papp. Both are considered large carnivores, but the bear is omnivorous. In practice, therefore, it “grazes like a cattle and eats more fruit than meat”, in the words of László Gál in a survey on waste management in the town of Baile Tusnad, in Transylvania.
In his research, Gál found that only 1 percent of the bear’s diet in that area came from hunting prey. A small over 40 percent was grass; 17 percent apples and plums; and 14 percent wheat. Plastic made up nearly 5 percent.
So, although both wolves and bears can attack livestock, points out Papp, wolves origin greater predation while bears may besides origin harm to property and crops. Their different behaviours must besides be taken into account. For example, wolves are strict carnivores with organised pack dynamics and more predictable territorial behaviour. Meanwhile, bears are solitary omnivores (except for mothers with cubs, and orphaned cubs), and so “far more opportunistic”, says Papp. That’s why conflict with them is more common around unsealed rubbish, crops, and so on.
For both species, “coexistence depends mostly on preventative measures”, says Papp. erstwhile individual bears are removed without addressing the factors that attracted them, the usual consequence is that they are rapidly replaced by another bears.
WWF Romania suggests a number of ways to guarantee coexistence between humans and bears. The most effective single 1 is to decently manage food waste and another items that attract bears. another measures include a clear protocol for responding rapidly to individual problem bears; the usage of GPS collars or AI-powered camera traps; deterrents specified as electrical fences and defender dogs; and community awareness-raising. 1 Romanian municipality with a advanced density of bears, Băile Tușnad, has already had success with any of these measures, as El Confidencial confirmed during a visit.
2016–2024: from a hunting ban to a quota
The bear has been regarded as a protector of the forest since ancient times. Romanians celebrate the fresh Year with a “bear dance”, to the beat of drums. The animal is featured in festivals, legends and even the country’s best-selling beer brand (Ursus).
So, “How did brown bears lose the Romanians’ favour?”, asked a BBC headline on a study about the fresh laws.
A series of fatal incidents, force from hunters and alarmist content on social media all helped put the animal back in the spotlight. Through viral videos of bears loitering on roads and looting rubbish bins, “social media is being utilized to demonise them”, sighs László Gál.
Since Romania joined the EU in 2007, the country has adhered to the global agreements that classify the brown bear as a strictly protected species. Romanian law has changed considerably since 2016, erstwhile the erstwhile strategy of yearly hunting quotas was abolished. Lethal culling has since been permitted only as “an exceptional measurement in circumstantial conflict situations”, explains István Imecs, the biologist.
Another major step was taken with Emergency Ordinance 81/2021, which introduced the “immediate intervention” mechanism. This enabled quick-response teams to remove bears posing an imminent threat to people or property. Local authorities were empowered to work with land managers to carry out these interventions.
A young hiker mauled
In 2024, there was widespread shock erstwhile a 19-year-old hiker tragically died after being mauled by a bear in the Carpathians. Romania’s parliament backtracked and adopted government to control the bear population. It set an yearly culling quota of 426 brown bears and an emergency quota of 55 bears. “These quotas are distributed among the counties and hunting areas and are enforced by the managers of those areas”, explains István Imecs.
Over the past 5 years, there have been 14 deaths from bear attacks in Romania and more than 150 injuries. In neighbouring Slovakia, the toll was 4 deaths and 64 injuries, according to the paper presented in Luxembourg. Imecs acknowledges the request to defend people: “The tragic failure of 14 lives must not be downplayed.” However, he argues that what matters most is the measures being put in place to prevent specified incidents from occurring. Public attention and political debate have focused on expanding bear-culling quotas. There has been small talk about preventative measures.
In 2026 the parliament passed a fresh law expanding the culling quota to 859 bears nationally in 2026-27, plus a further 110 bears under the rubric of emergency intervention. Formally, these are described as preventative and responsive measures, alternatively than trophy hunting quotas. “In practice, the discrimination is not always so clear”, says Imecs. On 24 June 2026, the constitutional court rejected a challenge brought by the president and ruled that the law does not contravene the constitution. The government is awaiting final procedural steps before it comes into force.
Imecs believes that transparency is now essential. If culls are genuinely management measures, he argues, then “there must be clear technological criteria for the selection of animals, comprehensive reports, genetic verification and public accountability”. Without specified openness, it will be “hard to separate wildlife management from a strategy which simply re-legalizes trophy hunting under different laws”. In practice, believes Imecs, it may prove hard to draw a clear line between the two.
Original article in Spanish by El Confidencial
This article was produced as part of the PULSE collaborative project. Marco Mobili. (Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy) and a writer from Hotnews (Romania) have contributed to it. It was translated by Harry Bowden.
Lola García-Ajofrín is simply a Spanish writer based in Madrid. She presently works for El Confidencial and the Polish multimedia task Outriders. In the past, she has worked with a wide scope of media, including El País, El Mundo, La Información and Telecinco.
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