Police Investigate Polish Bear Killing

[Jaga]

This is sad because there are so few bears in Tatra mountains:

Police Investigate Polish Bear Killing


Tuesday October 23, 2007 7:46 PM

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Six hikers are under investigation after they drowned a protected brown bear in the mountains of southern Poland, police said Tuesday.

The hikers, between the ages of 24 and 31, told police they drowned the two-year-old bear after it tried to attack them in the Tatra National Park. They said they first tried to distract the animal by throwing bread in its direction, said Monika Krasnicka-Bros, police spokeswoman in the town of Zakopane.

Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against the hikers on suspicion of killing a protected animal, Krasnicka-Bros said. If convicted, they could face up to two years in prison each.

Park ranger Filip Zieba questioned the tourists' account of the encounter with the 88-pound animal. ``On the basis of the bear's footprints in the snow one can say that there were no signs of an attack,'' Zieba said.

There are only about 60 brown bears left in the park, which is in southern Poland along the border with Slovakia.
www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7018664,00.html

[Pawian]

The police suspect the following: the tourists met an 80 pounds cub bear. They gave it sandwiches. When the latter gave out, the bear became demanding. The tourists panicked and started throwing stones at it to scare it off. A few rocks hit and fatally wounded the animal, so tourists dumped it into the stream.

[kaima]

Pawian,

That sounds too close to the likely truth. Quite often we have the situation where some tourist (or resident tourist) gives some food to a wild animal or bear so they can "feel good" with a touch of St. Francis. This simply trains the bear that people are a food source, so they come upon the next people and expect the same or more food. Eventually it can lead to a bear mauling people, the animal control people having to shoot or move the bear (moving, they have found out does not work ...) or some idiot shooting the bear "in self defense". In this case they used rocks on a tiny bear.

It is amazing how many bears are shot in Alaska in "self defense" that have the bullets entering from the back. A necropsy (autopsy) of the animal should answer a lot of questions.

I believe some years back a pair of orphaned cubs were shipped to the Romanian Carpathians for turning into the wild. Now THAT will result in a bear that can defend itself!

Kai

[Pawian]

kaima said:

Pawian,

That sounds too close to the likely truth. Quite often we have the situation where some tourist (or resident tourist) gives some food to a wild animal or bear so they can "feel good" with a touch of St. Francis. This simply trains the bear that people are a food source, so they come upon the next people and expect the same or more food. Eventually it can lead to a bear mauling people, the animal control people having to shoot or move the bear (moving, they have found out does not work ...) or some idiot shooting the bear "in self defense". In this case they used rocks on a tiny bear.

100% correct statement of yours.

It is amazing how many bears are shot in Alaska in "self defense" that have the bullets entering from the back. A necropsy (autopsy) of the animal should answer a lot of questions.

I pity those Alaskan bears and at the same time I am glad that Polish morons are not the only ones responsible for mistreating animals...

I believe some years back a pair of orphaned cubs were shipped to the Romanian Carpathians for turning into the wild. Now THAT will result in a bear that can defend itself!

I read an photo article on Romanian bears. Amazing cohabitation with people! Packs of wild bears come to people`s settlements to search rubbish bins, people come out of houses to look at bears. Incredible.