A brown bear was hit by a train and killed on Tuesday morning in Salzburger Land, not far from the border to Bavaria. Two engine drivers reported the animal carcass on the tracks near Schwarzach im Pongau, the state administration said. The Salzburg bear and wolf commissioner, Hubert Stock, then set out to take DNA samples. This should clarify the origin of the animal. Experts in Bavaria consider it quite possible that the brown bear killed is the cub that has been traveling in Upper Bavaria since mid-April.
“It is to be feared that it is our brown bear,” says wildlife biologist and ecologist Wolfgang Schröder, who has been researching brown bears for decades. “Even if we can’t say it one hundred percent, at least at the moment.” However, Schröder cites two strong indicators. One thing: the bear has always migrated east from its first appearance in Upper Bavaria in mid-April in the mountains in the Miesbach district and should therefore have arrived in the Salzburg region automatically at some point. The last detection on May 8th in the mountain forests in the Berchtesgadener Land district was not far from the border to Austria.
And the other indication: Like many experts, Schröder is firmly convinced that it is only a single brown bear that is or was on the move in the Upper Bavarian-Austrian border area. “All the news about two or even more bears in our region is likely to be speculation,” says Schröder. There will only be certainty when the DNA test of the bear carcass is compared with the gene traces left by the Upper Bavarian bear when it killed three sheep near Oberaudorf.
The brown bear may have died immediately after colliding with the train. According to the state administration, the carcass is bleeding heavily, the left rear paw was severed and the head is also seriously injured. The Salzburg bear officer Stock had the animal transported to a cold store for further assessment. In addition, it was decided to prepare the bear and use it for hunting training.
In the Salzburger Land there have been repeated reports of bear sightings in the past few days. In addition, the bear, which has been traveling in the Tyrolean Lech Valley for some time, has apparently moved to the Allgäu. In any case, on Monday a brown bear was photographed on a meadow in the Hintersteiner Tal.