Following a recent fatal bear attack on a 19-year-old hiker Romanian lawmakers held an emergency Parliament meeting Monday in Bucharest, where they approved a new plan to cull 481 bears this year, according to local news outlets. That’s more than double the 2023 total, and the increased quota aims to manage what many Romanians are calling an overpopulation of bears in the country.
The latest attack that spurred the decision involved a 19-year-old hiker identified as Maria Dana, who was chased, attacked, and killed by a brown bear in front of her boyfriend on June 9 in the Bucegi Mountains. Local officials say a desperate Dana called emergency services to ask for help as she was being chased by the brown bear. After catching up with her, the bear grabbed the woman by her leg, dragged her to the edge of the trail, and dropped her off a 400-foot cliff, according to the boyfriend.
The incident prompted Romanian prime minister Marcel Ciolacu to call lawmakers back for an emergency Parliament meeting during the summer recess. One senator who supported the move to expand the cull quota said Dana’s death illuminated the growing number of human-bear conflicts in Romania, which is home to more bears than any other country in the European Union.
“We are facing a terrible tragedy, a terrible tragedy that could be avoided, and similar tragedies have happened in the past,” former Minister of the Environment Tánczos Barna told Agerpres. “How long will it take for people’s lives to become more important for the entire Romanian Parliament than the life of a brown bear?”
He also criticized some of his colleagues for not supporting the re-establishment a quota-based hunting season for brown bears. The Romanian government outlawed ‘trophy’ hunting for bears and other predators in 2016. A new law passed in 2021 gave local governments the power to issue hunting permits for problem bears, but otherwise, the management of Romania’s brown bears has been left to government agents. CBS News reports that Romanian authorities fielded roughly 7,500 emergency calls involving brown bears in 2023 alone. Between 2016 and 2021, bears killed 14 people and injured 158 others, according to government data provided to Politico.
Barna also referred to a recent bill he sponsored that would reintroduce bear hunting, and which already passed the Senate last year but has stalled out in the months since. He said that draft law could be voted on and finalized if Parliament would act on it.
“We are no longer safe even on the mountain paths, we are no longer safe even on the agricultural areas and in certain areas, we are no longer safe even in the countryside,” Barna continued. “We need an assumption, a responsibility from the Legislature and there is an urgent need for a decision by which we can prevent such a tragedy.”
Barna’s call to action explicitly mentioned “19-year-olds” and “people who practice mountain sports” as being in “imminent danger.”
The head of Romania’s mountain rescue services Sabin Corniou told a local CNN affiliate that after Dana was dropped “into a chasm,” the bear “came down after her,” and when rescuers rappelled down to investigate the scene, they found it circling Dana’s body. He said rescuers were forced to shoot and kill the brown bear after it charged them multiple times. This is not typical brown bear behavior, Corniou explained. He said he’s dealt with other human-bear conflicts but has never seen an attack like the one involving Dana and her boyfriend.
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Romania is home to between 7,536 and 8,093 brown bears, according to a 2023 study published by the Ministry of Environment under Barna’s leadership. This is a marked increase from 2016, when bear hunting was outlawed and the ministry estimated the nationwide population at between 5,900 and 6,500 brown bears.