On Sunday, a bear attacked a married couple with a dog above the village of Pribylina in the Liptovský Mikuláš district in northern Slovakia. The man suffered minor injuries, Pravda.sk reported today. It was the second such incident within 48 hours – on Saturday, a bear allegedly attacked a mushroom picker in the Žilina district, who claims that he shot the beast in self-defense with a short firearm.
The most recent attack on a middle-aged couple took place on Sunday around 17:00 on a hiking trail in the Suchý Hrádok locality, approximately seven kilometers from the territory of the Pribylina municipality. The man suffered a minor injury to his lower limb and was released to home treatment after outpatient treatment, the Slovak State Nature Protection Agency (ŠOP) reported, whose emergency team investigated the location in cooperation with the police. The married couple waited in a nearby hut until the team arrived, where they hid from the attacking bear.
“The married couple were walking their dog. They stopped at a resting place near a well below Suchý Hrádok hill, and the man was suddenly surprised by an approaching adult brown bear, which wounded him on the leg while escaping over a wooden fence,” said ŠOP.
The municipality of Pribylina called on residents and visitors to exercise caution. ŠOP stated that the numerous reports of damage caused by bears or of encounters with these animals are the result of a long-term unresolved problem. The office is therefore negotiating with the users of hunting grounds in selected areas on a common procedure in which problem bears are to be reliably identified and, in cooperation with hunters, their possible removal is to be ensured.
The coexistence of humans and bears has become a political issue in Slovakia. The Slovak government wants to considerably relax the conditions for shooting bears. Government politicians criticized their predecessors for being too conciliatory. Last week, Prime Minister Robert Fico’s cabinet approved a draft constitutional law, which is supposed to allow the widespread shooting of bears moving around towns and villages. However, it will need the votes of the opposition for its approval. However, according to the largest opposition party, Progressive Slovakia, the law is not in line with EU law, which, according to the party, only allows the shooting of demonstrably problematic individuals.
