As of: January 30, 2024, 6:32 p.m
By: Johannes Welte
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A couple was chased by a bear in northern Italy.
The predator has already attracted attention several times - and is now to be shot down.
Mezzana – Once again there has been a dangerous encounter between humans and animals in the northern Italian Alps.
Two fiancées (both 30) were walking along a forest road near the town towards the Farini Alm on Sunday (January 28) in the municipality of Mezzana, about 50 kilometers southwest of Bolzano.
Suddenly a bear appeared behind them, reports the portal
fanpage.it
.
The animal chased the couple for several hundred meters.
A wolf had previously come threateningly close to a mother with a stroller in Italy.
Dangerous incident in Italy: Bear chases couple “hundreds of meters” through the forest
The fiancées kept their nerve.
“They slowly began to back away and even made noise, but the predator followed them for hundreds of meters,” Mezzana mayor Giacomo Redolfi tells the newspaper
ildolimiti
.
When that didn't work, the couple called friends on their cell phones who drove to the scene on their motorcycles.
And were finally able to drive the bear away with the noise of the vehicles.
The animal disappeared back into the forest.
The bear was identified as the specimen with the abbreviation M90, which had already made headlines several times: The animal was caught between September 14th and 15th, 2023 in the neighboring municipality of Dimaro because, as the province explained, “it caused damage to the proximity of inhabited areas.
After being fitted with a radio collar, the young bear was released.
The animal, among other things, trotted through the middle of the town, as a video showed.
Another bear was discovered last year in a garden in an Italian town.
In October, cyclists encountered what was believed to be the same animal.
A day later he was hit by a car, but apparently not seriously injured.
M90 piled into the forest.
Bear had been noticed several times around people
The fact that a bear is on the move in the middle of winter may come as a surprise to many.
Some people may assume that bears are still hibernating.
But according to the province of South Tyrol, this is not the case:
“Unlike marmots, which truly hibernate, the bear falls into a kind of semi-hibernation for the winter period.”
Under certain circumstances it could happen that the bear occasionally leaves its cave during this time and stays in the immediate vicinity.
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Added to this are the particularly moderate temperatures, which do not “promote” the continuation of hibernation.
In fact, just a few days ago, bear tracks were found next to overturned garbage cans in Mezzana's neighboring town of Malè.
The Trentino Beekeepers Association called on hive owners to turn on their electric fences.
A brown bear chased two people in northern Italy.
Now he should be shot.
© IMAGO/imageBROKER/Michael Weber
“Problematic specimen”: Italian provincial chief prepares to shoot the bear – animal rights activists protest
Provincial President Maurizio Fugatti from the right-wing Lega party is now preparing a firing order for the M90: “This problematic example, which was already equipped with a radio collar, was the subject of numerous deterrent attempts last year,” Fugatti announced in a statement.
“Following notification from the national environmental agency ISPRA, the province is working to reconstruct the facts of the case and establish beyond doubt what happened in order to comply with the request for removal by shooting.”
The International Association for the Protection of Animals OIPA announced on
trentotoday.it
that it “will, as always, use all the means at its disposal and ask for access to the documents in the next few hours in order to obtain details of the incident”.
OIPA also criticized Fugatti and his cabinet for “still not implementing preventive measures that could enable peaceful coexistence between large carnivores, residents and hikers.”
Brown bears are actually under European protection and are not allowed to be killed.
However, the provincial president Fugatti and the right-wing government majority in Trentino recently decided on a shooting plan that envisages the killing of eight animals per year.
However, the province has failed several times in administrative courts over orders to kill bears.
People in the Italian Alps are currently also at risk from rock falls, as a rock avalanche on the Brenner Pass showed on Monday (January 29).