The Tábor Zoo in Czechia has filed a complaint with the European Commission over the relaxation of rules for the controlled shooting of bears in neighboring Slovakia.
“It is not surprising that Slovakia has gone the way of the Middle Ages, when it was common to shoot everything that moved in the forest and [that] was just a little bit hairier than a man of that time,” said Evžen Korec, the zoo’s director, in a statement shared with POLITICO on Thursday, adding he considers the “mass killing of endangered species barbaric.”
“The brown bear is a protected species within the European Union,” he noted. “The EU quite rightly spends the most money on its protection of any endangered animal species.
“Slovakia has chosen to ignore European legislation,” Korec continued, calling the Slovak Environment Ministry, which is in charge of the bear-shooting rules, “the ministry of reckless extermination.”
Slovakia amended its rules for shooting bears in May, following an increase in attacks on people. To speed up the issuance of exemptions to shoot bears, the legislation now allows a state of emergency to be declared, as in the case of an earthquake or a terrorist attack, when a bear approaches a human settlement.
“We were able to solve a major legal problem that prevented the shooting of a bear even in cases where there has not yet been an attack on a person. We will no longer have to react after the fact,” Slovak Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba said in May. “Shootings will 1730407713 be carried out in the interest of protecting the lives, health and property of citizens, preventively and in advance.”
The Slovak legislation overrides EU law governing protected species, however, which requires that a bear display “problematic” behavior before a license to kill can be issued. Taraba told POLITICO earlier that the Commission had approved the Slovak government’s bill in return for the country’s support for the nature restoration law. The Commission has denied that account.
Bears became a hot political topic in Slovakia ahead of this year’s elections to both the presidency and the European Parliament, prompting the far-right Slovak National Party, to which Taraba belongs, to blame the situation on EU bureaucrats and the bloc’s green rules.
According to an analysis by multiple universities, there are between 1,000 and 1,300 brown bears in Slovakia. The Slovak Environment Ministry confirmed it will issue some 100 licenses to shoot bears until the end of this year; 86 of the animals have already been killed.
POLITICO contacted the European Commission and the Slovak Environment Ministry with a request for comment.