In the mountainous border area of the Bavarian districts of Miesbach and Rosenheim to neighboring Tyrol, two torn sheep and a dead deer were found on Saturday afternoon. The animals were close to the place where a bear had killed two sheep on Wednesday night and injured another so badly that it had to be rescued. According to the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU), however, there is still nothing to suggest that a bear attacked the sheep of an alpine farmer on Saturday.
The carcasses of the sheep would have to be examined more closely, but the body of the deer that was torn not far away showed “exclusively traces of a wolf or dog”.
However, the possibility that a wolf could have killed two of their sheep instead of the bear does not reassure the alpine farmers around the Wendelstein in any way. You’ve been extremely concerned for a week. Last weekend, for the first time, clear paw prints were discovered in the snow on the Bavarian side of the border – presumably traces of the bear that had been wandering around across the border near Thiersee in the Brandenberg Alps for quite a while without him there hitherto livestock tears would be charged.
Since then, new photos of bear tracks have repeatedly been passed around in the chat groups of farmers in the Bavarian Inn Valley and around Bayrischzell and Fischbachau.
The recent cracks in the Oberaudorf community were examined on Saturday afternoon by an expert from the “Network Large Predators”, which the Free State set up for such cases. According to the state office, this expert also took samples in order to be able to reliably determine the type of attacker and possibly even the individual animal by analyzing genetic traces. The sheep carcasses should therefore be examined in detail a second time at an “official section”.
Only then and after the genetic samples have been evaluated can there be “concrete knowledge” as to whether a dog, a wolf or possibly a bear killed the sheep.
Another expert from the network acted similarly the day before in Berchtesgadener Land, where two dead sheep were also found on Friday. Nothing is known of a passing bear in this region. Based on the external injuries of the sheep, “the involvement of a wolf cannot currently be ruled out”.