Officials in Slovakia reported on Sunday that two individuals had been hospitalized after being attacked by a bear, prompting concerns about human-bear interactions in the region. The Environment Ministry is considering proposing measures to make it easier to hunt bears in order to manage their population.
Emergency services disclosed that a 49-year-old woman sustained a shoulder injury, and a 72-year-old man received treatment for a hand wound inflicted by the bear in the town of Liptovsky Mikuláš.
Police intervened to drive the bear out of the town, according to reports. Social media footage captured the bear running along a road and even lunging at a man on the pavement in one instance.
The incident occurred just a day after a tragic event in the nearby Low Tatra mountains, where a 31-year-old woman from Belarus fell to her death while reportedly trying to escape from a brown bear. The woman and a male companion had encountered the bear while walking in a densely forested area. They fled in separate directions, and the woman’s body was discovered shortly after the male hiker sought assistance from authorities.
Slovakia has witnessed several bear attacks in recent times, including a fatal one in 2021. Prior to that, the country had not recorded a lethal bear attack in over a century.
The resurgence of bear populations in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly across the Carpathian mountain range, has led to increased encounters between humans and bears. As a result, the Environment Ministry is contemplating urging the European Union to reconsider the protections afforded to bears, with a view to potentially relaxing regulations to facilitate their hunting. The aim is to manage bear numbers and mitigate the risk of such encounters.
The ministry is contemplating revising the status of bears on the protected species list, arguing that their growing numbers suggest they are no longer endangered and could be subject to selective hunting to control their populations.
However, researchers have contested claims of a significant increase in Slovakia’s bear population, asserting that it remains relatively stable at around 1,275 individuals.
