{"id":2710,"date":"2025-07-10T13:14:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T11:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/?p=2710"},"modified":"2025-07-10T13:14:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T11:14:48","slug":"bear-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/2025\/bear-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent decision from General Directorate for Environmental Protection (GDO\u015a) to shot three bears in Bieszczady has caused an intense public reactions and debate. We are following the discussion, which is not always as substantive as it should be. We were requested last year by GDO\u015a to provide a reasoned opinion<\/a> on the application by Cisna municipality to shot three bears, after analyzing provided material. Our ten substantial arguments are the following (full information in the opinion):<\/p>\n

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  1. The cause of the current situation is unprotected municipal waste and the widespread availability of anthropogenic food<\/strong> that has lasted for years.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    1. The risk assessment protocol and recommendations of bear expert teams<\/strong> should be strictly applied in assessing the risks of bear events. In the risk assessment categories, bear removal is the very last option, only applied when all other measures have been put in practice and the animal is very aggressive.<\/li>\n
    2. Shooting with rubber bullets<\/strong> is the most effective method of aversive conditioning for bears and, very important, it has to be conducted together with the removal of attractants<\/strong>. Without removing the garbage, nothing will work.<\/li>\n
    3. To be close to human settlements by juvenile bears and family groups is a natural and adaptive behavior<\/strong> to avoid infanticidal adult males. Spring is when bears are mating and is a difficult time, especially for young bears which have just been weaned by their mothers.<\/li>\n
    4. Population size does not determine the number of conflicts<\/strong>. The number of human-bear conflicts depends on many factors, including human activities, and varies among years, seasons and areas. The number of bears given by GUS is unscientific, unreliable and inflated.<\/li>\n
    5. There is an urgent need to have a professional intervention team and advisory expert team<\/strong>. Eventual bear removals should be done at the location in question by a professional team that can secure that it is the target individual and that can immobilize the animal before deciding on euthanasia. This cannot be done with firearms by hunters in the forest, as the risk to injure and mistake the animal is considerable.<\/li>\n
    6. Integrated municipal waste management plan in bear areas<\/strong> is crucial. Food waste has to be secured (in enclosures, using bear-proof bins, or electric-fenced) and be collected with much higher frequency. No bins should be available in the forest; each visitor must take back home his\/her waste.<\/li>\n
    7. Raising public awareness about how to behave in bear areas and the consequences of bear feeding<\/strong>, both intentional (e.g. for photography) and unintentional (e.g. ungulate baiting for hunting). This is a risky game which can bring serious problems to people.<\/li>\n
    8. The scientific knowledge exists and should be used<\/strong> to take the best possible decisions.<\/li>\n
    9. Management plan for the brown bear in Poland<\/strong> has been waiting for more than a decade. Now it is a highest time to have it implemented!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The recent decision from General Directorate for Environmental Protection (GDO\u015a) to shot three bears in Bieszczady has caused an intense public reactions and debate. We are following the discussion, which is not always as substantive as it should be. We were requested last year by GDO\u015a to provide a reasoned opinion on the application by Cisna municipality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}