In Slovakia, the brown bear that attacked and injured five people, including a little girl, in Liptovsky Mikulás, in the north of the country, has been killed. The he said the Slovakian Environment Minister, Tomás Taraba, specifying that the animal was killed after being identified thanks to the use of a drone. Some opposition politicians, however, believe that the one killed could be another one. The images of the bear running through the streets of the city in March had gone viral and the municipal administration had declared a state of emergency: since then a long search to find it had been launched.
European parliamentarian Michal Wiezik, member of the opposition party Progressive Slovakia, he however said that he is “certain” that the one shot down is not the bear that had attacked Liptovsky Mikulás, given that the one he was looking for weighed between 80 and 100 kilos, while the one shot down weighed around seventy. According to Wiezik, the Slovak government, which is supported by two left-wing and populist parties and one conservative and populist, is exploiting the news of the shooting to strengthen consensus in view of the second round of the presidential elections on 6 April.
Various members of the Slovak parties that support the government are pushing to relax the laws on protected animal species, given that with a population of 1,275 individuals they say the bears could be hunted and killed. The Ministry of the Environment has made it known that it intends to propose to the European Union a reclassification of species at community level to allow selective culling.