Bad Tölz (dpa / lby) – A brown bear has been sighted again in southern Upper Bavaria. A spokesman for the State Office for the Environment (LfU) said on Wednesday in Augsburg that it was unclear whether this was the same animal that was last recorded by a wildlife camera in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district at the beginning of May. “This requires genetic material that we don’t have yet.” In the vicinity of the bear recording from the weekend in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district, a search was made for hair and feces – but so far without success.
Most recently, three cyclists reported seeing a bear in Austria near the German border over the weekend. The animal stayed on the “Bärenbad” forest path near Langkampfen in the Tyrolean district of Kufstein – around ten kilometers southwest of the municipality of Kiefersfelden in the district of Rosenheim.
Despite the repeated sighting, the LfU does not assume that bears will settle permanently in Bavaria. The experts pointed out that young males sometimes roamed very far in search of a female – sometimes for several months or a few years. If they don’t find a partner, they return to their home country. The nearest bear population is in Trentino, Italy, about 120 kilometers from Bavaria.
The LfU advises hikers and day trippers in southern Upper Bavaria because of the sightings of bears “to be very careful not to leave any leftovers or rubbish in nature”.
