accidents
Suspected bear attack – 26-year-old dead in Italy
Police officers walk through the forest in front of an area cordoned off with warning tape. A jogger may have been attacked and killed by a bear in northern Italy. photo
© -/provincial government of Trentino/dpa
The body of a jogger is found in the Trentino woods. The man’s body has serious injuries that suggest a bear attack. An autopsy should bring clarity.
A jogger has been found dead in the northern Italian province of Trentino – it is believed that a bear attacked and fatally injured him. The 26-year-old Trentino was found early Thursday morning in the municipality of Caldes in the Val di Sole valley, which is popular with hikers and tourists, near a forest path, the province said. The man’s body has serious injuries.
According to media reports, deep scratches on his body and face, bite marks and a deep wound on his stomach suggest that a bear killed him.
The young man had not returned from a jog in the woods on Wednesday, prompting his concerned family to raise the alarm. After hours of searching involving various emergency services, his body was found by search dogs next to the forest path. Because of the condition of the body, the authorities ordered an autopsy, which should now clarify the cause of death. “Today is a sad day for the municipality of Val di Sole and for Trentino, which gathers around the family and friends of the young man who died in the woods of Caldes,” the province said on Thursday.
Warning about wild animals in the region
The entire region around the Trentino valley Val di Sole in the Italian Alps north of Lake Garda is popular with hikers and tourists as a holiday region. Forests, valleys, rivers and alpine lakes attract many visitors every year. The province of Trentino is part of the northern Italian autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige.
However, the Trentino forest corps and the provincial administration repeatedly warn of possible encounters with wild animals in the forests and hilly areas of the region. In the mountainous and wooded area, lynxes, wolves and bears are particularly native. However, wild bears in particular have been causing problems for the region for some time. About 100 bears live there in the wild – and the number of bears is increasing according to regional figures. In 1999, as part of the EU’s “Life Ursus” project, a dozen bears from Slovenia were brought to and released from the region where the bear population was feared to be extinct at the time.
According to the Coldiretti agricultural association, the spread of bears poses a serious risk not only to the safety of local people, but also to the economy, from agriculture to tourism.
In the area, just under an hour’s drive from the provincial and regional capital of Trento, bears have recently been sighted again and again. Locals told the newspaper L’Adige that there had been several attacks on farm animals such as sheep in the past month. In early March, not far from Caldes, a man walking his dog was attacked by a bear and injured his head and arm.