After a 19-year-old woman was killed by a bear on July 10 in the central Romania Bucegi mountains, the country’s government voted on Monday to expand the bear culling quota in the country from 220 to 481 this year, and another 962 in the following two years.
Romania's environment minister Tánczos Barna approved of the decision, saying that the number of bears in the country was “out of control”, estimating that the number could be as high as 8,000.
Environmental NGOs have hit back at the government with letters addressed to the country’s President Klaus Iohannis, who has to sign off for final approval of this new law.
In one open letter, which 20 environmental NGOs, including the international non-profit conservation organization WWF Romania and the global environmental campaigner Greenpeace have signed, it says that the proposed law “constitutes a flagrant violation of the Habitats Directive.”
The Habitats Directive is European legislation requiring national governments to ensure the conservation of flora and fauna species on their territory, including the protected brown bear species.
One Romanian wildlife NGO, Agent Green, wrote a separate letter and went as far as to threaten to take Romania’s government to court for violating the directive if the law is approved by Iohannis.
The NGO’s president, Gabriel Paun, told Iohannis that “the promulgation of the law will trigger a direct infringement and will take Romania to the European Court of Justice as an emergency.
“I'm sure you don't want that, and I ask you to think deeply about the situation before making a decision.”
Calin Ardelean, a biologist from WWF Romania, told TVP World that “the law will bring no solutions.”
“Any quota that will be ultimately established for preventive hunting, must be based on solid estimation data obtained by scientific methods. That requirement is not yet fulfilled," Ardelean said.
He added that his government’s estimation of the bear population to be at 8,000, and the environmental minister’s claim of an “overpopulation” of bears, is “not founded fully on the scientific basis.” This is because it was not founded on the basis of a genetic analysis of the bears.
A genetic study is currently being carried out with the final results to be public only “in the first half of next year,” WWF Romania wrote in their letter.
“It’s not just our opinion, it is also the opinion of the Academy of Science of Romania,” Ardelean added.
As the number of bears in Romania is unknown, and since the new bear culling quota is not founded on science, the conservationists argue, the law violates EU legislation.
Bear management and hunting rules
The biologist told TVP World that his organization is not against hunting but that the way hunting is conducted today is “not for the purpose of the management of the bears” - it is simply “trophy hunting.”
“Since we do not have clear management and hunting rules, now we just go into the forest and shoot 500 bears, which will mainly be males, maybe dominant males. And this could affect, to a high degree, the structure of the population,” Ardelean said.
In 2021, WWF Romania teamed up with local authorities, the gendarmerie, the local hunting association and NGOs in the small, eastern town of Băile Tușnad in the Transylvanian forest - where many bears frequent - to trial a solution to manage the bear population in the area.
The results of the experiment showed that the number of Ro-alerts, which are emergency calls warning the presence of bears in the town, dropped from 238 in 2021 to only six in 2023.
He outlined three main strategies that were used in the experiment: bear-proof containers for waste were introduced, and the community cut down fruit trees on the edge of town that were also attracting the bears.
They also put up 400 electric fences on the perimeter of households being visited by bears and put GPS collars on the bears to track their movements.
“So now [the team] can intervene in due time if they have the signal that the bear is inside the community. We don’t have to wait a long time to see the bear, to announce it to the police, the mayor… We have an announcement for the intervention,” Ardelean said.
Views on hunting in Romanian society
Hunting is often associated with money and privilege in Romania. During Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime, which ended in 1989, bear hunting was an entitlement afforded only to Communist officials. Since the country joined the EU in 2007, a multi-million-dollar industry has developed, with hunting agencies charging hunters as much as €10,000 per hunting trip.
Many high-ranking politicians and people in business today go to exclusive hunting events in Romania to conduct business deals. One such event is Romanian billionaire and former tennis player Ion Tiriac’s annual wild boar hunting trip, which invites high-profile business and political leaders from across Europe.
This group of elites are among the camp pushing for looser rules on trophy hunting, and this would reflect a general trend in Romanian society between people living in the city versus people living in the countryside.
According to Ardelean, in the city bears are “not very accepted” because “[these] people aren’t very used to [the large carnivores].” Therefore, “they accept and want the bear to be hunted because they are afraid of what is happening.”
On the other hand, people living “in the country, the bear is largely accepted,” Ardelean said, and so they side more with the conservationists’ stance on coexisting with the bears.
As Romania is home to the largest population of bears in Europe (excluding Russia), bears hold a prominent place in Romanian folklore. In eastern Romania, customs and pre-Christian traditions connected to the bear are still very much alive.
An example of this would be the captivating “Bear Dancing” custom at the end of December each year where people adorn themselves with bear skins and sing and dance together as part of a procession. The custom is meant to symbolize rebirth and is believed to wade off misfortune and danger.
