The draft law aimed at measures to manage the bear population was adopted with amendments in Monday’s meeting of the combined Agriculture and Administration Committees of the Chamber of Deputies.
The bear law, modified PHOTO: ARCHIVE
The draft law, adopted by the Senate on November 6, 2023, aims to supplement Article 1 of the Law on Hunting and the Protection of Hunting Fund no. 407/2006, as well as the amendment and completion of GEO no. 81/2021 regarding the approval of immediate intervention methods to prevent and combat attacks by brown bear specimens on people and their property, as well as for the modification and completion of some normative acts, writes Agerpres,
Through an amendment adopted in the commissions, it was established that, in order to prevent bear attacks on the human population and the material damage caused by these animals, for the year 2024, the harvesting of a number of 426 brown bear specimens is approved, which represents the level of prevention at the national level, and of a number of 55 brown bear specimens, which represent the level of intervention at the national level.
UDMR Senator Tanczos Barna, initiator of the project, stated that it is based on a scientific study commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, aimed at estimating the brown bear population in Romania. According to the study, the specialists estimated that there are between 7,400 and 8,500 brown bears in Romania and proposed the extraction of 426 specimens, for prevention, but also other interventions in cases of force majeure.
He mentioned that at the level of hunting funds, the number of the prevention quota was calculated depending on the number of attacks on people, the number of attacks on barns and agricultural crops, as well as the amount of damage caused.
“The project provides for an annual quota of intervention to manage the problems in the areas most affected by human-bear conflicts. The annex of this legislative initiative estimates the intervention at the level of the hunting fund depending on the severity of the problems in each hunting fund”explained the former Minister of the Environment.
The representatives of the USR parliamentary group supported several amendments, but none of them were adopted. The amendments aimed at measures for educating the population, simplifying the intervention procedure so that mayors can quickly adopt measures to protect the community, shooting bears exclusively by the technical staff of the hunting funds, not by hunters.
“If, indeed, behind this bill is not the desire to mount a tragedy, in order to fill some more money pockets of the hunters, then let’s do the prevention with the specialized technical staff employed by the manager, not by hunters”said USR deputy Diana Buzoianu, vice-president of the Environment Commission.
Another amendment approved in the meeting of the assembled commissions aims to increase the number of CIC points from 350 to 400. CIC points represent the minimum threshold from which the evaluated hunting trophies are retained in the national heritage.
