As of: February 8, 2024, 8:01 p.m
By: Johannes Welte
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Reinhold Messner advocates shooting problem bears.
© Roland Weihrauch/dpa
After the M90 bear was shot down in northern Italy, mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner speaks out.
In an interview he calls for more animals to be killed.
Juval/Trento – The shooting of the M90 bear in the mountains of Trentino is causing heated discussions.
The animal, which was named Sonny by Italian animal rights activists, was shot just a few hours after the provincial government issued a decree to that effect.
A few days earlier, Sonny had been chasing hikers in the forest.
The animal had previously trotted through villages and showed no fear of people.
The fact that the authorities did not wait for further legal action from animal rights activists and created a complete and utter reality is infuriating.
They demand “revenge” for the dead Sonny.
A young bear (archive photo) was shot in northern Italy.
Now there is a dispute about the necessity.
© Lino Mirgeler/dpa
Now Messner joins the discussion.
In an interview with the newspaper
La Stampa
, the 79-year-old, who lives at Juval Castle in Vinschgau, says that there are too many bears in Trentino-South Tyrol.
“And that we no longer know how to live with it.” He is close to agriculture, and the mountain farmers have two problems: the bears and the wolves.
Messner: A bear needs a large territory and comes into human settlements
But the problem with bears lies in their nature: “The bear needs large spaces.
They become dangerous when they don't have enough territory and come close to settlements." Messner understands people who panic when they encounter bears: "It's normal to be afraid when you meet them." For him there are only two solutions: “Kill them if they are dangerous or send them to the Carpathians where there is space.”
Messner had already campaigned for the shooting of bears last year.
Afterwards he “even received crazy threatening letters saying they should shoot you rather than the bears.”
The exceptional mountaineer explains the sympathy many people have for the animals as follows: “None of them think of bears, but rather they are looking for something they can identify with, while they actually want to find peace among people.”
Mountaineering legend wants an end to the trench warfare over the animals
Messner doesn’t want trench warfare over the bears: “Unfortunately, we’ve already had a lot of wars.
Do we want to do the same with bears?
We have to stop this.” And he adds: “The decision-makers are in Trento, there they have to find solutions based on serious analysis.
As for me, all I can say is that bears are a problem in the mountains of Trentino.
It seems obvious to me and the reason is precisely their number.”
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The truth is that “we are no longer able to live with these large carnivores,” said Messner.
“The bear is no longer part of our culture.
There have been no bears in our mountains and at least in Trentino for 130 years.
They disappeared because the farmers could no longer tolerate them.” There is no point in beating around the bush, the problem is coexistence with wild animals.
Messner concluded: “I would stick to the fact that my goal is peace, the end of conflicts between people because of the presence of bears.”