The Environment Ministry has filed a criminal complaint against an unknown perpetrator for illegally feeding bears while disregarding dangers such a behaviour might cause. The ministry responded this way to recent attacks by a brown bear on humans in the Banska Bystrica region, central Slovakia. According to recent findings, in both cases the attacker was a female bear with three cubs. The ministry warned the public that the spring is a mating season for bears and females tend to protect their young from adult males, who often attempt to kill the cubs in order to mate with the female. "The female bears seek shelter. They attack humans only when their cubs are in danger, to protect them," stated the ministry.
Mayors of towns and villages in Banska Bystrica region call on authorities to address what they see as an unsustainable overpopulation of brown bears, in the wake of recent bear attacks on humans that took place in the village of Kyslinky and near a mountain hotel at Polana, TASR learnt on Thursday. According to Detva’s mayor, Jan Sufliarsky, the municipality is often contacted by inhabitants who run into bears on the outskirts of Detva and are afraid to let their children go to school or out in the evening. "People have already reported even seeing 11 bears together. However, damage reports have come in from beekeepers, sheep owners and ordinary people whose hen-roosts in their yards were ruined by bears," warned Sufliarsky.
The warning call was also echoed by a hunter of OZ Polana association Martin Nozka, who said that the bear population has swelled recently and even big bears have started to wander down into valleys, which was not the case in the past. According to research conducted in 2014, 158 bears were detected living in an area of 60,000 hectares, but these numbers have gone up considerably since then. "In the past, female bears had only one or two cubs. These days, we run into mothers with three or four cubs and even have seen a female bear with five cubs," he said.
Source: TASR
