Animal rights activists have condemned the killing of a mother bear accused of attacking a French hiker in Italy.
ADVERTISEMENTA mother bear believed to be responsible for an attack on a French hiker earlier this month has been killed in Italy.
Animal rights activists said the killing of the bear identified as Kj1 leaves her three cubs in “serious difficulty to survive”.
The alpine Italian province of Trento confirmed the killing on Tuesday, despite protests by activists.
The International Organization for Animal Protection said the order for her killing was issued overnight, making it impossible to seek a legal stay.
“OIPA Italia is disconcerted at the culling of Kj1, which we tried to save with two legal actions,’’ says Claudia Taccani, a lawyer for the organisation, noting that a judge had suspended two previous kill orders to examine other remedies. “Unfortunately, this was not done.”
Trento, which enjoys a large degree of autonomy from the Italian government, has been at the centre of controversy over the culling of brown bears that it says have encroached too confidently in human territory in recent years.
How do authorities know Kj1 was responsible for the attack?
A DNA analysis taken after the French hiker was attacked indicated that Kj1 was responsible.
“Kj1 was a dangerous specimen,’’ the province said in a statement, citing a scale that rates the threat posed by bears. “The animal was found to be responsible for at least seven interactions with humans,’’ including the 16 July attack on the 43-year-old French hiker in the municipality of Dro, north of Garda Lake.
The hiker reportedly strayed off the path at about 500 metres of altitude on an early morning hike and encountered the bear that injured him in the leg and arm. The hiker escaped and called for help.
It was the ninth incidence of aggression against humans since brown bears were reintroduced to the province in 1999 as part of a European Union project, and the first since a hiker was killed last summer.
