Animals
Environment Minister on the subject of bears: “All measures” conceivable
A brown bear in Slovakia. (icon image) photo
© Milan Kapusta/tasr/dpa
A bear killed two sheep in Bavaria and injured a third so badly that it had to be killed. What should be done now?
After a bear attack on sheep in Upper Bavaria, Bavaria’s Minister for the Environment, Thorsten Faithr, described human safety as an absolute priority. In case of doubt, the shooting of the animal is also possible. “In an emergency, all measures can be considered,” emphasized the Free Voter politician on Thursday in Munich. The facts must now be clarified in detail and the situation on site closely monitored.
A bear had torn two sheep in the Rosenheim district and injured a third, which then had to be killed. “On the basis of the initial documentation of the animals’ external injuries and the footprints found on site, this incident can be assigned to a bear,” the State Office for the Environment (LfU) in Augsburg announced. There was no sighting or direct encounter between humans and bears.
The dead sheep were found on a pasture in the border region with Austria on Wednesday. According to previous knowledge, the bear behaves shyly towards people, as the LfU announced. Livestock farmers in the area should bring their animals into the barn at night if possible and take livestock protection measures. The authorities could support this with fence material, it said. A spokesman for the Ministry of the Environment said that further measures should be checked continuously by the responsible authorities.
Most recently, paw prints were discovered in the Rosenheim and Miesbach districts last weekend. The bear may have already been out and about in Tyrol in March.
In the Free State, traces of individual bears wandering through are seen from time to time, a permanent settlement is not expected. But the so-called problem bear Bruno, who was shot in Bavaria in 2006, is still remembered.