Italian authorities on Tuesday introduced that they’d captured a brown bear in a single day after it had killed a jogger earlier this month.
The destiny of the 17-year-old feminine bear, often known as JJ4, is now within the arms of an Italian courtroom, which is able to decide if it needs to be euthanized. The talk has infected tensions over a profitable effort to reintroduce brown bears to the area after they practically went extinct within the Nineties.
The bear was present in Val Meledrio, a valley within the mountains of Northern Italy, the provincial authorities of Trento stated in a news release on Tuesday.
The president of Trento Province, Maurizio Fugatti, stated “satisfaction mixes with bitterness” over the seize.
Mr. Fugatti also attempted to have JJ4 euthanized in 2020, after the bear attacked a father and his grownup son in June of that year.
“We might have preferred to provide this information in 2020, however its killing first, after which its seize, had been blocked by the courts,” he stated.
Authorities looked for the bear after investigators used genetic testing to find out that JJ4 had fatally attacked Andrea Papi, 26, a jogger from Caldes, a city in Trento. Mr. Papi was discovered within the woods and an autopsy concluded that he had died from wounds inflicted by a bear on April 5 or 6. Mr. Papi was the primary Italian to be killed by a bear in fashionable occasions, reported the Italian news agency, ANSA.
After genetic testing confirmed that JJ4 had attacked Mr. Papi, Mr. Fugatti signed an order final week to seize her. He has additionally issued an order for the bear to be euthanized, however that directive is on maintain, pending a call by a neighborhood courtroom, which is scheduled to fulfill on Could 11.
Mr. Fugatti said after Mr. Papi’s loss of life that different authorities in Italy had targeted an excessive amount of on the well-being of the bears, and never sufficient on the protection of individuals dwelling in the identical areas.
He’s additionally searching for to euthanize the bear MJ5, which attacked a person in March.
There have been an estimated 73 to 92 bears in Trento in 2021, the government said. The brown bear inhabitants within the area had shrunk to a few or 4 bears within the Nineties and confronted extinction earlier than the mission, Life Ursus, introduced 10 bears from Slovenia to the area between 1999 and 2002.
Animal welfare teams have pushed again towards his efforts. On Monday, the advocacy group Animalisti Italiani stated that the provincial authorities had not finished sufficient to reduce the possibilities of harmful interactions between bears and people.
“Our cohabitation with the large predators which have at all times populated our nation isn’t solely attainable, with the correct precautions, but additionally needed,” the group said in a statement.
Trento’s forest division captured JJ4 this week utilizing a tube lure and took her to a neighborhood wildlife middle. She was discovered along with her three two-year-old bears, which have been deemed self-sufficient and have been left behind, officers stated.
On the wildlife middle, JJ4 is being fed fruit and greens, officials said. She weighs about 330 kilos and is in good well being.
Ilaria Parogni contributed reporting.
