The Return of Europe's Forgotten King

Humans have lived alongside bears since time immemorial. For a while, they even shared prehistoric caves. People revered bears and considered them their kin, used them to frighten young women and, according to myth and legend, believed that gods favored them and that unions between humans and bears gave rise to the legendary lineages of European nobles and rulers.

The Christianization of Europe marked a turning point in this ancient relationship. Both secular and ecclesiastical authorities drove bears from much of Europe's lowland forests, reshaped their cultural symbolism and, in some kingdoms, sought to eradicate them as part of the struggle against pagan traditions. During the Middle Ages, the lion – long extinct in Europe – replaced the bear as the "king of the animals", while the deer became the "king of the forest".

"Historically, brown bears were persecuted in Europe for centuries before their gradual elimination from much of Western Europe", notes an article in the scientific journal Biological Conservation. Bears disappeared from Silesia in the 18th century, Bavaria in the 19th century and, during the 20th century, the last members of the species Ursus arctos were shot in Switzerland and France.

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Back From the Brink

While the Marsican brown bear – a subspecies found in Italy's Apennine Mountains – remains critically endangered, with only about 60 individuals left in the wild, the brown bear as a species is not threatened despite disappearing from the British Isles and much of Western Europe.

Across Europe, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Urals, more than 20,000 brown bears are divided into 10 populations, four of which the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies as critically endangered. Despite the vulnerability of some populations, the species as a whole continues to expand its range.

This recovery is the result of both the species' natural reproduction and decades of conservation measures introduced by governments and environmental organizations. Thanks to these efforts, Europe's brown bear population grew by nearly 50% between 1960 and 2016 and had increased by a further 17% by 2023.

When Humans and Bears Collide

Although Europe's human population is shrinking because of low birth rates, encounters between people and bears are becoming more common as several bear populations continue to grow. Over the past year, fatal bear attacks have been reported in Greece, Poland and Romania.

In late June, Statement reported extensively on efforts by Slovakia and Romania – home to roughly half of the EU's brown bears – to persuade Brussels to simplify rules governing the management of this protected species. Bratislava and Bucharest argue that bear populations in their countries are now roughly three times higher than local ecosystems can sustainably support. Their position is backed by the governments of Croatia, the Czech Republic and Finland.

Africa as a Model?

A decision by Brussels to ease the brown bear's strict protected status would not result in indiscriminate culling. Instead, it would allow preventive culls of problem bears or animals living in areas with exceptionally high population densities. Finland, which supports the Slovak-Romanian initiative, advocates such an approach.

While preventive hunting would inevitably mean killing individual bears, supporters argue that the species could ultimately benefit if the policy were carefully managed. They often point to examples from Africa.

In 1977, Kenya banned hunting. According to supporters of regulated hunting, wildlife populations subsequently declined sharply as poaching increased and many farmers killed animals to protect their land. Lion numbers reportedly fell from around 20,000 to about 2,000. Similar developments have been cited in Botswana.

Zimbabwe and Tanzania adopted a different approach by allowing tightly regulated trophy hunting, with part of the revenue directed toward wildlife conservation. Supporters argue that similar policies in South Africa helped the country's white rhino population recover from around 30 animals to nearly 21,000.

Brussels must now decide which path it prefers: maintaining strict protection, expanding preventive culls carried out by wildlife authorities or allowing tightly regulated hunting under carefully controlled conditions.

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