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The recent approval of the Romanian parliament for the culling of almost 500 brown bears to ‘control their overpopulation’ has drawn shock and disbelief from several animal lovers worldwide. However, as one wildlife expert from Kashmir told Down To Earth (DTE), there is a need to study the issue in depth before drawing sentimental conclusions.
A new law promulgated by the Romanian parliament has authorised the culling of 481 bears in 2024, as per media reports. This is more than twice last year’s total of 220.
The rationale given by the politicians is that the brown bear population in the southeastern European nation has grown to an extent where the country’s wilderness areas can no longer support it and thus, it needs to be ‘controlled’.
The decision could have been prompted by a spate of attacks by bears on people. Official figures available with the government show that 26 people have been killed and 274 severely injured over the past 20 years in Romania.
“This is a policy decision by Romania as a sovereign country. I have no idea regarding the basis — whether scientific research or management supportive — on which they have taken the decision. But the natural conditions of the population of any wild species should reflect its role and the health of the ecosystem they inhabit. It should be ecologically sustainable,” Rashid Naqash, Regional wildlife warden of Jammu and Kashmir told DTE.
The Union territory in the Himalayas is home to the Himalayan Brown Bear, a cousin of the European Brown Bear and the North American Grizzly. Jammu and Kashmir also falls under the natural distributional range of the Himalayan or Asiatic Black Bear, closely related to the North American Black Bear.
Naqash noted, “Basically, what we are observing is that human-bear interactions in human-dominated landscapes give rise to unnatural wild populations which are not ecologically viable.”
He explained that there should be a concept in wildlife conservation and management known as ‘population threshold’.
“When any animal species crosses its ‘population threshold’, it loses its ecological role and conservation value and, in such cases, the fear of humans as well. A study conducted by non-profit organisation Wildlife SOS in the Sonamarg area of the Kashmir Valley has found that Himalayan brown bears are attracted to unnatural source of food like trash bins, almost like stray dogs, in the tourist resort, and to food waste in garbage dumps at base camps during the annual pilgrimage to the holy cave of Amarnath in Kashmir. The bears have socialised to the extent that they have lost the conservation viability required for a healthy ecosystem. They have simply lost their pristine, wild character,” said Naqash.
When wildlife is attracted to unnatural food over a very small and limited area, it can drastically lead to an increase in unnatural populations. Whereas scarcity or abundance of a natural food keeps the number under check in natural conditions, human-produced food in the form of trash, or farm/crop lands can support much more.
After in-depth research, a local government should decide as to what the ‘population threshold’ for a particular species is, to sustain in a particular ecosystem, according to Naqash.
He pointed to the landscapes of Jammu and Kashmir, which have similar problems. “Bears, both brown and black, are changing their behaviour in the Himalayas as they are more attracted to human-dominated landscapes, crop fields and livestock, all of which offer easily available food. Not just ursids, Jammu and Kashmir has a problem with leopards as well, with the cats being spotted even in the capital cities of Jammu as well as Srinagar,” he stated.
All three animals have developed behavioural changes, which Naqash termed as ‘social imprinting’. “Most of them have lost the fear of Man.”
What of the fact that Romania, as well as much of Eastern Europe, are the last remaining strongholds of brown bears, with the country alone hosting 8,000 animals, according to its environment ministry? That is Europe’s largest brown bear population outside Russia. Brown bears, wolves and lynx have long been extirpated in most of western and central Europe, though conservation measures have meant they are making comebacks in several parts of their former range.
“Maybe the authorities in Romania have taken the decision based on what current bear numbers are and the numbers which can be sustained. It must be having some basis,” said Naqash.
Others though have disagreed with the government’s decision.
In an open letter to the President of Romania on July 17, Worldwide Fund for Nature-Romania stated that the brown bear provided many ecological benefits and was an emblematic species of the Carpathians and Romanian culture.
“…but we are also aware that it can be a problem-generating species. But the current problems reflect the chaos in Romania’s bear population management over the past 20 years,” the letter read.
It added: “The law sent for promulgation faithfully and unfortunately reflects the way the state understands to carry out the management of the brown bear population: through hunting that does not aim at extracting problematic specimens from around towns or those that have caused damage, but rather valuable specimens from the point of view hunting, located in their natural habitat and that do not come down to the localities.”
The organisation concluded the letter by saying that, “We believe that a law dedicated exclusively to the hunting of the bear population, without solid scientific bases and selection criteria based on the problematic behavior of the hunted specimen, has no way to solve the problem of human-bear conflicts, will create a greater social division on this issue and will attract huge financial penalties for our country from the European Commission.”