A rampaging brown bear that terrorized a Slovakian town and attacked five has been shot dead in a local forest after ten days of drone hunting for the beast.
Liptovský Mikuláš today revoked the emergency situation he declared on March 17 after “eliminating” the predator at 9:50 p.m. last night.
According to Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba, a drone with biometric technology was used during the ten-day hunt that ultimately allowed the bear to be identified.
Local police and nature conservation services have scoured the forest and surrounding residential areas in search of the ferocious animal that entered the city two weeks ago from the Western Tatra region.
Following the rampage, a 49-year-old woman was injured in the shoulder, while a 72-year-old man was treated for a gash to the head after the two men attacked.
The brown bear that wreaked havoc on the streets of Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia, was shot dead on Tuesday, authorities confirmed today.
The bear injured five people, including a 10-year-old girl, after going on a rampage.
A sign was erected in Liptovský Mikuláš warning residents to stay out of the area as authorities prepared to use firearms to capture the bear.
A 10-year-old girl also became the bear’s target last week after suffering scratches and bruises following an attack, authorities said.
Terrifying footage shared online showed the beast bounding through public streets and jumping in front of cars as city residents fled the animal.
The bear launched its first attacks on Podtatranského and Československá brigada streets before heading towards a nearby shopping center.
Video footage showed the bear on the four-lane road from Rachmaninka to Nábrežie, where it injured other people.
The predator then swam across the Váh River, before rescue and security forces chased it into the forest between Iľanova and Závažná Poruba.
Since then, several patrols have searched for the bear continuously, day and night, until it was eliminated.
The fatal shooting comes after some residents begged authorities to have mercy on the animal.
On Facebook, one wrote: “This young bear, who accidentally entered the city, is terrified because he entered an unknown area….. he will definitely not return to the city afterwards this experience….. no need to eliminate a young bear from his life….. let it live for him’.
Another added: “There is no reason to kill the bear! He has the right to live, there are other ways to ensure his safety! Killers will pay for killing, you must remember this rule.
The city asked residents not to leave their homes, especially early and late, as six patrol groups of armed hunters, police and wildlife experts scoured the city for the bear.
On March 19, a sign was erected on the old road between Iľanova and Závažná Poruba, warning residents that they would “endanger their lives” if they left their homes during the hunt.
“The road is temporarily closed and bear hunting poses a high risk to human life,” the sign states.
“In the event of disobedience, people will be at high risk of putting their lives in danger.”
Slovak news server actuality.sk estimates the bear to be a three-year-old child weighing around 11 years old.
Drones with biometric technology were used by authorities during the 10-day bear hunt before its removal.
Footage captured as the bear was spotted swimming across the Váh River
A woman told a local newspaper she was traumatized by the wave of attacks.
Some members of Slovakia’s populist nationalist government said the incident proved the need to relax EU environmental protections on wildlife, which prevent the hunting of animals such as bears and wolves.
“This is a case where a bear brutally attacked people. One person almost lost an eye,” Rudolf Huliak, a right-wing Slovak National Party MP in charge of the Environment Ministry, told local media immediately after the incident.
Huliak called for “a firm solution to excessive bear numbers.”
The Slovak Environment Ministry said it would propose, together with Romania, at the next EU Council of Environment Ministers that bears be reclassified as protected species, because their numbers mean that They are no longer endangered and could be culled selectively.
Bears are common in many parts of Eastern Europe, including areas surrounding the Carpathian Mountains, which extend from Romania to Poland and through Slovakia.
Researchers have estimated that around 3,000 bears live in Sweden, 2,000 in Finland, 1,100 in Estonia and around 100 in Norway, with the largest population of brown bears in Europe being in Russia.
They also estimated that there were around 1,275 bears in Slovakia.