Bologna, 8 April 2023 – The family of Andrea Papithe 26-year-old runner killed by a bear in Trentino, intends to report the Autonomous Province of Trento and it State for reintroducing bears in Trentino. It is the daily T that reports the news, quoting the mother Franca Ghirardiniwho had already spoken of an announced tragedy.
The family, the newspaper informs, has already entrusted itself to lawyers and the intention is to challenge the methods with which the Life Ursus projectwithout a consultative referendum among the population of the area.
The tears of family and friends
Parents, sister and girlfriend yesterday had to deal with the bitter discovery of Andrea’s death. The whole community of the town, friends, but also acquaintances and not via social networks, gathered around the father, Charles Papi Romagna but moved to Trentino for years where he manages hotels, to his sister Laurato the mother Franca with whom the young man lived, but also to his fiancée Alessia Gregori who, together with the young man’s mother, raised the alarm, as they saw him returning home.
Furthermore, in her Instagram stories Alessia let it be known that close to church of Caldes from today there will be one cornicein which anyone can leave a memory to hangwhether it’s a photo, a dedication or an object in his memory.
The order to kill the bear
Meanwhile, since they came out yesterday i autopsy results on the body of the young graduateUniversity of Ferraraauthorities ordered the killing of the animal and at least 3 other bears. Today the president of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Maurizio Fugatti, signed the ordinance contingible and urgent to bring down the bear. The ordinance signed by Fugatti, “taking into account the situation of extremely serious danger to public health and safety, potentially concerning more municipalities”, orders the Trentino Forestry Corps “to continue intensive monitoring of the area where the tragedy occurred , in order to ensure maximum protection of public safety and security, to proceed, in the shortest possible time, with the genetic identification of the specimen that has become the protagonist of the aggression and to proceed with the slaughter”.
“Unquantifiable capture time”
“We still don’t have a precise identification of the aggressor bear, but through molecular swabs we will arrive at DNA analysis. When major attacks occur, samples of fur and excrement are taken for genetic analysis. Time for capture? It is not quantifiable , a few days or several weeks could be enough“, said the manager of the Forest and Wildlife Services of the Autonomous Province of Trento, John Giovannini. The Val di Sole area, precisely the orographic right of the Noce river from Dimaro to Mostizzolo, and the subsequent lower part of the Val di Non, are very popular with mother bears. And on the culling order he says: “it’s one emergency responsewe are looking for it, that is an area inhabited by bears a lot, the job is not easy but they will be killed”. On the operations of capture and killing, Giovannini explains, “an analysis of the territory is carried out, it is necessary to understand where the animal, it is not easy but we can count on highly specialized forestry operators equipped with a canine unit dedicated to the search for bears, these are operations that must be carried out in maximum safety”.
Lav: Trentino people not educated to live with bears
Massimo Vitturihead of the Wild Animals Area of the national Lav, criticizes the management of the presence of bears in the area by the Autonomous Province of Trento: “The responsibility for this death lies with the Province of Trento which for 24 years it has not educated citizens to coexistence with bears on the territory. You didn’t educate how to behave when meeting a bear, alla waste management with the creation of bear bins: if the bear matches the presence of food in a town, it’s over”. “The residents of Trentino have lost awareness of the bear’s presence – says Vitturi -. In the mid-1990s there were only three elderly male bears in Trentino, which meant that the population was biologically extinct. The Life Ursus reintroduction project was exclusively of a scientific nature and had the aim of giving continuity to the bear’s presence in the area. Subsequently, the project had a tourist flywheel”.
Animal activists against the decision of the authorities
The animal rights associations however, they have taken a stand against the bear culling order. L’The bad onesin a note, invites calm, hoping that “the institutions do not resort to the barbarism of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. “Ten bears were released between 1999 and 2002and today there are about 100. But the initial intent has been reversed and from protection we are moving on to killing”, commented the Oipa wildlife manager, Alexander Piacenza. “If this is the result of so much effort, that public money might as well have been invested elsewhere,” she added in reference to the Life Ursus project.
According to the Italian Association for the Defense of Animals and the Environment (Aidaa), it is necessary “to go to the bottom of the investigations and reconstruct what happened”. Papi – continued the association in a note – “he would have defended himself with a stick and this may have provoked the bear’s reaction”.
Controversy on social media
In the meantime, come on social multiply i messages against culling e in favor of the bears. “The bear doesn’t walk in town, so the man looks for another place to run,” writes one user. Another states: “Why do they only happen in Trentino? There are bears in Abruzzo too, but nothing happens”. “Let’s boycott Trentino: surely there is an economic reason for wanting to kill all the bears”, reads one of the comments.
Legambiente: no witch hunt
What happened in Trentino-Alto-Adige is a worrying fact – Legambiente writes in a note – For the future of the bear, we ask the Ministry of the Environment to quickly set up a discussion table between the department, regions, protected areas and associations because the great challenge to face together is the improvement of management and coexistence. The national manager of protected areas and biodiversity of Legambiente, Antonio Nicolettiand the president of Legambiente Trento, Andrew Pugliese they underline: “Only in this way will it be possible to avoid starting a new witch hunt that has the bear as the protagonist, risking causing fear to grow and increase in local communities and among tourists”. After expressing “closeness both to the family of the 26-year-old Andrea Papi and to the local Trentino community”, Nicoletti and Pugliese admit: “It is clear that the fate of this bear is now sealedjust as it is clear that in Trentino-Alto-Adige there is a problem of managing these plantigrades and coexistence with the local community”.
Bear aggression: the data
Legambiente recalls that this would be the first case registered in Italy over the past 150 years of a bear attack resulting in a victim, vs seven officially recorded assaults in the Italian Alpine area in recent years and a few dozen direct contacts between the bear and man. “The tragic nature of the event and the pain of the moment must not make us forget the risks inherent in nature and the animals that frequent it”, and at the same time Legambiente underlines that it is important to wait for the results of the official ISPRA report which will clarify the dynamics of facts to make the most appropriate decisions.