Romania and Slovakia have turned to Brussels seeking flexibility in dealing with soaring brown bear populations, which they argue are posing a direct threat to public safety.
The Central and Eastern European nations, which together are home to over half of Europe’s entire bear population despite having only 5.5% of the continent’s total forest area, delivered a briefing note ahead of a meeting of European agriculture ministers this week containing stark statistics about the explosive rise of brown bear numbers in their countries.
A Growing Problem
The joint document estimates the current population at approximately 11,500 bears in Romania and at least 2,500 in Slovakia.
Given the area of suitable habitat in both countries, the optimum population level from both an ecological and a public safety perspective is 4,000 individuals in Romania and 800 in Slovakia.
“The current population therefore exceeds this level by almost threefold”, the note reads.
Brown bears, like each of Europe’s six large carnivore species, are protected under the 1992 Habitats Directive. It requires all EU member states to establish a system of “strict protection”, prohibiting, among other things, the deliberate killing of species in the wild.
Under Article 16, the Habitats Directive allows for derogations to the protection system “under certain conditions”. The Commission advises that derogations should always be used only as a last resort.
Europe’s six large carnivore species are the brown bear (Ursus arctos), wolf (Canis lupus), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), the highly threatened Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), wolverine (Gulo gulo) and golden jackal (Canis aureus).
Every mainland EU country hosts at least one of these species, according to the Commission.
The push for flexibility in managing large carnivores under EU legislation is supported by Croatia, Czechia and Finland, all of which have their own concerns about predator population management.
Each country has a greater or lesser bear population, but is additionally home to growing wolf and lynx populations, as well as wolverines in Finland’s case.
In light of what is described as the brown bear’s “favourable conservation status”, Romania and Slovakia are calling on the European Commission to clarify Article 16 of the Habitats Directive regarding its application to large carnivore populations that have “achieved and maintained” that status over the long term.
In particular, the countries are seeking recognition of “scientifically grounded control of brown bear population density, implemented while maintaining favourable conservation status”, which they describe as a “legitimate management tool” in areas characterized by high levels of human-bear conflict.
Reference is made to a 2024 amendment to the wolf’s protection regime, which came primarily in response to damage to livestock and the economic losses borne by farmers as a result of growing wolf populations.
However, the situation in relation to brown bears in Romania and Slovakia is described as being “considerably more serious”.
Fatal Consequences for Humans and Animals
Over the past five years, 14 people have been killed following bear attacks in Romania, averaging two to three deaths per year. At the same time, the briefing note reads, more than 150 people have been seriously injured, while over 30,000 emergency calls have been made reporting either the presence of bears or bear attacks.
Meanwhile, during the same period in Slovakia, bear attacks have resulted in four deaths and 64 people being seriously injured. In both countries’ cases, the majority of deaths occurred “in the recent period”, marking a notable break from the past when such incidents either did not take place, as in the case of Slovakia, or were less frequent, as in the case of Romania.
One widely reported case in 2024 saw a brown bear run through the northern Slovak town of Liptovsky Mikulas, injuring five people.
The damage is not limited to public health. In a section marked “socioeconomic considerations”, the note says that 1,806 domestic animals, including horses, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, were killed by large carnivores, and brown bears in particular, in Romania between 2024 and 2026.
In Slovakia, more than 500 domestic animals were killed by brown bears between 2023 and 2025.
A Problem Spreading Beyond the Border
As wild populations of large carnivores increase, the issue of human-predator encounters is becoming more common, even aside from Romania and Slovakia.
Bordering Slovakia to the north, Poland saw its first fatal bear attack since 2014 this year, in which a 58-year-old woman succumbed to the severe injuries she sustained.
The fatal incident came in the wake of a bear attack on a 53-year-old man in Poland’s mountainous southern region, the same area of the country where the woman was fatally attacked.
Just as elsewhere, Poland’s bear population is currently rising, with recent estimates suggesting that at least 120 bears reside in the Polish mountains, and possibly as many as 400. However, Polish authorities have stressed the difficulty of ascertaining precise figures “due to the specific biological and ecological characteristics of the brown bear”.
