The initiative We are Les and the organization AEVIS, WWF Slovakia and Via Iuris refuse to plan the Minister of the Environment Tomáš Tarab (SNS nominee) to shoot 350 bears. Recall that the blanket shooting is contrary to international commitments, So the ministry by this step consciously violates the legislation. Envirorezort call for conceptual and meaningful preventive measures.
According to organizations, it is also scientifically proven that Bear shoots do not reduce the number of human conflicts. Point out that Last year, 144 bears were killed in Slovakia, which is a maximum of 100 years. Yet the clashes with people have not disappeared, as evidenced by A case in Polana, where, according to preliminary information, a person died after a collision with a bear. It is an area where the second highest number of bears killed in Slovakia was in 2024. The solution is seen by organizations in active preventive measures and education of citizens.
“For more than a year, we have been following the chaotic steps of the state – the adoption of a number of laws, the declaration of emergency situations, and especially the largest number of blasts in recent years, resulting in another tragedy. The government could already understand that this is not the way,” Pavol Žilinčík from WWF Slovensko notes.
According to organizations, the ministry has repeatedly promoted incorrect and ineffective solutions, ignores the facts and laws and thus contributes directly to further deterioration of the situation. The decisions of the environment of the Envirorezort, even in the case of bears, call incompetent and non -systemic. They do not consider a proposal to shoot another 350 bears as an effective measure. In two years, Slovakia could lose almost half of the bear population and without a guarantee for citizens that the number of clashes will decrease.
According to them, the ministry should not only address the consequences, but especially to prevent problems. People need clear and understandable information about How to behave safely in nature. Whether the risks it brings Baul of game near dwellings and hiking trails, movement of people in opaque terrain, harvesting antlers, freely released dogs, movement outside the marked paths or photography of wild animals. They consider prevention to be crucial, it should be devoted to it systematically.
Minister on Monday on the social network, in connection with the case under Polana in Detva, informed that Slovakia has a positive population curve of the brown bear and therefore it is necessary to proceed to the surface regulation. According to him, the State Nature Conservation of the Slovak Republic delivered the justification for the proposed area shooting 350 individuals. As he pointed out, on Wednesday (April 2), the government will be submitted to a proposal to declare an extraordinary situation in the districts of the occurrence of a bear in which the shooting will be simplified.
He added that the more bears, the more he is clashes with man and more damage. “I am convinced that, as they have introduced in Romania and in Slovakia in the foreseeable future, we will introduce a preventive quota to shoot bears,” he explained.
