The bear that fatally attacked a hiker in the Italian Alps, on which a temporarily suspended kill order weighs, has been captured tonight, the Autonomous Province of Trento (north) reported today, after falling into one of the traps prepared to his arrest.
The 17-year-old bear, called “JJ4”, who had already attacked a father and son in 2020, has been transferred to the Casteller wildlife center, in the south of the province.
Last Wednesday, the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) suspended the order of execution of the animal until May 11, by accepting the appeal filed by the Anti Vivisection League (Lav Italia) against the ordinance issued by the president of the Trentino province , Maurizio Fugatti.
The group defined the sentence as “a victory for those who believe in the positions of the association, always on the side of the bear” and said that the kill order seemed “more like a gesture of revenge against the bear than an effective search for safety of all in a peaceful coexistence”.
Fugatti issued the order after an autopsy confirmed that the 26-year-old who was found dead on April 5 in a forest in the Brenta Massif area in the southeastern Alps was attacked by the 17-year-old bear.
The suspension will remain in force until May 11, when the fate of “JJ4” will be known, since the TAR has set a hearing for that day, for which the province of Trento presented numerous documents yesterday, including the autopsy of the young hiker. and a report from the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA).
“We knew what had happened a long time ago, but interventions have not been promoted to guarantee the safety of the population,” lamented the young man’s mother in a letter published in the media, whose death she learned of while waiting for him to have dinner after he I would have gone for a run.
Numerous mayors in the area have shown their support for the Province of Trento and some have even threatened to resign if a solution is not found, while various animal defense associations have filed a new appeal and the Government is studying the possibility of transferring some specimens, without ruling out the sacrifice of the most aggressive ones.
The bear that killed the young man is a descendant of Joze, a specimen that was captured in Slovenia and released in the Adamello Brenta Natural Park as part of a project that tried to repopulate the Italian Alps with bears 25 years ago.
“There are more than 120 bears in Trentino, but they descend from just two males, Joze and Gasper. Genetic impoverishment threatens the entire population,” said zoologist Andrea Mustoni, one of the project’s leaders, for whom, although most of bears do not attack nor are they carnivorous, there are “problematic and overconfident” specimens.
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