27 September 2019 – On 25th September, Romania’s Senate passed a bill under which – for a period of five years – hunting brown bears is no longer restricted to annual quotas approved by the Environment Ministry. The bill is intended to reduce human conflict with bears but global animal welfare organisation FOUR PAWS warns Romania against the fatal impacts the new law will have on the nation’s biodiversity and ecosystems. Without a detailed and independent scientific assessment of the bear population in Romania such measures could have catastrophic consequences for the wild population and instigate a bear massacre. Therefore, FOUR PAWS has started a global petition to call on the Romanian government to reject the proposal.

With an estimated 7,000 bears, Romania has the largest bear population in Europe. According to FOUR PAWS, the soon-to-be-introduced hunting law could change that. So far, it has been legal to kill 600 brown bears in Romania each year. However, for the next five years there will be no restrictions. 

Human-bear conflict as reasoning

The introduction of the new law is due to the ongoing emotional debate on human-bear conflicts in Romania. Illegal logging has reduced and fragmented the brown bears’ natural habitat which has led to bears intruding onto human territories looking for food. “The Senate’s proposal has no scientific backing and is also not the solution to the problem. We want the Romanian government to release official statistics and put forward scientific data on bears in Romania that would contribute to passing new laws,” so Dungler.

FOUR PAWS has started a global petition to call on the Romanian Chamber of Deputies to reject the proposal: https://help.four-paws.org/en/say-no-unlimited-hunting-bears-romania