First wolves, now bears: Eastern Europe wants the EU to roll back wildlife protections

In Eastern Europe, a dispute over bears is forcing politicians to arbitrate between environmentalists and hunters. Although the forests of Romania and Slovakia account for just 5.5 per cent of Europe’s total woodland, they are home to more than half of Europe’s brown bears. The two countries' governments are deploying this argument to demand that the protection status of the brown bear be reduced, as has been done for the wolf.

Their proposal, supported by Croatia, Czechia and Finland, was presented at the meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on June 22nd and 23rd in Luxembourg.

Romania is home to Europe's largest population of brown bears outside Russia (although there is no consensus on the exact numbers). In April 2025, Romania's Ministry of the Environment, Water and Forests presented a report which concluded that, based on a sampling programme launched in 2023 to extract DNA from hair and faeces, there were between 10,419 and 12,770 bears in Romania. Assuming a population of 11,500 bears in Romania and 2,500 in Slovakia (according to its government), these figures are three times the level considered optimal by the authorities, which is 4,000 and 800 animals respectively.

“The government constantly repeats this figure of 4,000 bears, but we have not seen any scientific document explaining how it was calculated”, biologist István Imecs, vice-president of the Project Bag Association, complains to El Confidencial. “For a policy of this magnitude, there should be greater transparency."

The brown bear is currently listed as a strictly protected species in Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. If the brown bear were reclassified from “strictly protected” to “protected”, this would have implications “for both ecology and governance”, says Cristian-Remus Papp, director of wildlife and landscape at the Romania branch of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).

From a conservation perspective, argues Papp, such a decision “could weaken the precautionary framework that has enabled populations of large carnivores in Europe to recover and stabilise over recent decades”.

Changing the legal status would not address the causes of the conflict between humans and bears, adds Papp. At its root the conflict is due not so much to the bears' protected status as to contingent factors, such as “access to food sources of human origin; ineffective waste management; and the lack of preventive measures and effective response”.

Rather than being framed as “protection versus security”, the debate should focus on “the effectiveness and proportionality of the measures”, believes Cristian-Remus Papp.

Bears: the new wolfs?

The proposal calls for brown bears to be managed in the same way as wolves. So how comparable are the animals? There are similarities between the two species, “but also significant ecological and management differences”, says Papp. Both are considered large carnivores, but the bear is omnivorous. In practice, therefore, it “grazes like a cow and eats more fruit than meat”, in the words of László Gál in a study on waste management in the town of Baile Tusnad, in Transylvania.

In his research, Gál found that only 1 percent of the bear’s diet in that area came from hunting prey. A little over 40 percent was grass; 17 percent apples and plums; and 14 percent wheat. Plastic made up nearly 5 percent.

So, although both wolves and bears can attack livestock, points out Papp, wolves cause greater predation while bears may also cause damage to property and crops. Their different behaviours must also be taken into account. For example, wolves are strict carnivores with organised pack dynamics and more predictable territorial behaviour. Meanwhile, bears are solitary omnivores (except for mothers with cubs, and orphaned cubs), and so “far more opportunistic”, says Papp. That's why conflict with them is more common around unsealed rubbish, crops, and so on.

For both species, “coexistence depends largely on preventative measures”, says Papp. When individual bears are removed without addressing the factors that attracted them, the usual result is that they are quickly replaced by other bears.

WWF Romania suggests a number of ways to ensure coexistence between humans and bears. The most effective single one is to properly manage food waste and other items that attract bears. Other measures include a clear protocol for responding quickly to individual problem bears; the use of GPS collars or AI-powered camera traps; deterrents such as electric fences and guard dogs; and community awareness-raising. One Romanian municipality with a high density of bears, Băile Tușnad, has already had success with some of these measures, as El Confidencial confirmed during a visit.

2016–2024: from a hunting ban to a quota

The bear has been regarded as a protector of the forest since ancient times. Romanians celebrate the New Year with a “bear dance”, to the beat of drums. The animal is featured in festivals, legends and even the country’s best-selling beer brand (Ursus).

So, “How did brown bears lose the Romanians’ favour?”, asked a BBC headline on a report about the new laws.

A series of fatal incidents, pressure from hunters and alarmist content on social media all helped put the animal back in the spotlight. Through viral videos of bears loitering on roads and looting rubbish bins, “social media is being used to demonise them”, sighs László Gál.

Since Romania joined the EU in 2007, the country has adhered to the international agreements that classify the brown bear as a strictly protected species. Romanian law has changed considerably since 2016, when the previous system of annual hunting quotas was abolished. Lethal culling has since been permitted only as “an exceptional measure in specific conflict situations”, explains István Imecs, the biologist.

Another major step was taken with Emergency Ordinance 81/2021, which introduced the “immediate intervention” mechanism. This enabled quick-response teams to remove bears posing an imminent threat to people or property. Local authorities were empowered to work with land managers to carry out these interventions.

A young hiker mauled

In 2024, there was widespread shock when a 19-year-old hiker tragically died after being mauled by a bear in the Carpathians. Romania’s parliament backtracked and adopted legislation to control the bear population. It set an annual culling quota of 426 brown bears and an emergency quota of 55 bears. “These quotas are distributed among the counties and hunting areas and are enforced by the managers of those areas”, explains István Imecs.

Over the past five years, there have been 14 deaths from bear attacks in Romania and more than 150 injuries. In neighbouring Slovakia, the toll was four deaths and 64 injuries, according to the document presented in Luxembourg. Imecs acknowledges the need to protect people: “The tragic loss of 14 lives must not be downplayed."  However, he argues that what matters most is the measures being put in place to prevent such incidents from occurring. Public attention and political debate have focused on increasing bear-culling quotas. There has been little talk about preventative measures.

In 2026 the parliament passed a new law increasing the culling quota to 859 bears nationally in 2026-27, plus a further 110 bears under the rubric of emergency intervention. Formally, these are described as preventative and responsive measures, rather than trophy hunting quotas. "In practice, the distinction is not always so clear”, says Imecs. On 24 June 2026, the constitutional court rejected a challenge brought by the president and ruled that the law does not contravene the constitution. The legislation is awaiting final procedural steps before it comes into force.

Imecs believes that transparency is now essential. If culls are genuinely management measures, he argues, then “there must be clear scientific criteria for the selection of animals, comprehensive reports, genetic verification and public accountability”. Without such openness, it will be “hard to distinguish wildlife management from a system which simply re-legalizes trophy hunting under different laws”. In practice, believes Imecs, it may prove difficult to draw a clear line between the two.

Original article in Spanish by El Confidencial

This article was produced as part of the PULSE collaborative project. Marco Mobili. (Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy) and a journalist from Hotnews (Romania) have contributed to it. It was translated by Harry Bowden.

Lola García-Ajofrín is a Spanish journalist based in Madrid. She currently works for El Confidencial and the Polish multimedia project Outriders. In the past, she has worked with a wide range of media, including El País, El Mundo, La Información and Telecinco.