Bratislava, Aug 4 (CTK) – Vysoke Tatry, a tourist and sport resort in the High Tatras mountains, suffers from an excessive number of bears and it has applied for the permit to kill 20 of them that stay in the close surroundings of people’s houses and settlements, the Slovak Press Agency (TASR) has reported.
The Environment Ministry has permitted the shooting of two bears for the time being.
Vysoke Tatry, comprised of the three most popular tourist destinations, Strbske Pleso, Stary Smokovec and Tatranska Lomnica, declared an emergency situation over the high occurrence of bears in April.
It recommended that the visitors should not move outside housing complexes or approach garbage containers after sunset.
Further repeated incidents involving bears made the town hall apply for the permit to kill 20 bears that have been moving within a one-kilometre range from settlements.
“The ministry is of the view that the killing of 20 brown bear specimens would not solve the situation adequately,” its spokeswoman Petra Stano Matasovska said.
She said the solution mainly lies in changing the ways of handling communal waste that attracts bears to inhabited areas.
The Tatra National Park (TANAP) administration has not recommended the killing of 20 bears either.
TANAP director Pavol Majko said the problem with bears started in the High Tatras in 2010.
The “container bears” may pose a threat to tourists as well as the local people, he admitted.
The bears only make their life simpler by feeding on communal waste, since they could definitely find enough feed in the wild now, Majko said.
The situation could improve with the installation of special closable boxes for communal waste. Vysoke Tatry has already applied for a subsidy to help take the step.
