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Slovakia’s government has approved the culling of 350 brown bears this year following a fatal attack and a rising number of encounters between humans and bears. The decision came days after a 59-year-old man was killed by a bear in a forest near Detva, in central Slovakia. Authorities confirmed his injuries were consistent with a bear attack. The man had gone missing on Saturday and was found by mountain rescue teams with “devastating injuries to the head.” Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose government is led by a populist-nationalist coalition, said people “cannot live in fear” and cited public safety as the reason for the move. “We cannot live in a country where people will be afraid to go to the forest, where people become food for bears,” Fico said during a press briefing. The cull amounts to more than a quarter of Slovakia’s estimated brown bear population, which is believed to number between 1,200 and 1,300. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 10 News First (@10newsfirst) A special state of emergency allowing bears to be shot has now been expanded to cover 55 of the country’s 79 districts—effectively most of Slovakia. The environment ministry cited Romania’s model, where quotas have been used to control bear populations. Romania authorised the killing of 481 bears last year. Slovakia saw 13 bear attacks on people in 2024, and 144 bears were shot—up sharply from previous years. Conservationists have condemned the decision, calling it excessive and potentially unlawful. Michal Wiezek, a member of the European Parliament from opposition party Progressive Slovakia, called the cull “absurd.” “The environment ministry failed to prevent attacks with its earlier cull,” Wiezek told the BBC. “Now, to cover that up, it plans to kill even more bears.” He said thousands of bear encounters occur every year without incident and called on the European Commission to intervene. Bears are protected under European law and are common across the Carpathian range, which stretches from Romania through Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland. The US-based World Wildlife Fund has also criticised similar culls in neighbouring countries, saying they risk undermining biodiversity and failing to address root causes such as habitat loss and food waste near settlements. Slovakia’s environment minister, Tomas Taraba, said a population of 800 bears would be “sufficient” and sustainable, but experts dispute that number, saying the population is relatively stable.
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