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Following the death of a man mauled by a brown bear in Central Slovakia, the Slovak cabinet has approved a controversial plan to kill around a quarter of the country's brown bear population. Prime Minister Robert Fico's government, citing the danger to humans, announced the decision to cull 350 of the estimated 1,300 bears after a cabinet meeting.
"We can't live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods," the prime minister told reporters afterwards.
A special state of emergency allowing bears to be shot has now been widened to 55 of Slovakia's 79 districts, an area that now covers most of the country.
The government in Bratislava has already loosened legal protections allowing bears to be killed if they stray too close to human habitation. Some 93 had been shot by the end of 2024.
The plans to shoot even more were condemned by conservationists, who said the decision was in violation of international obligations and could be illegal.
Slovak police confirmed on Wednesday that a man found dead in forest near the town of Detva in Central Slovakia on Sunday night was killed by a bear. His wounds were consistent with an attack.
The 59-year-old man had been reported missing on Saturday after failing to return from a walk in the woods. He was found with what authorities described as "devastating injuries to the head". Evidence of a bear's den was found nearby, a local NGO told Slovak newspaper Novy Cas.
Bears have become a political issue in Slovakia after a rising number of encounters, including fatal attacks.
Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said on Wednesday there were more than 1,300 bears in Slovakia, and that 800 was a "sufficient number", as the population was growing.
However, experts say the population remains more or less stable at around 1,270 animals.
Bears are common across the Carpathian mountain range, which stretches in an arc from Romania through western Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Poland.
