Killing of 'dangerous' bear in northern Italy spurs anger

Local authorities in the northern Italian Alps killed a mother bear deemed to be "dangerous" on Tuesday after she injured a French tourist earlier in July, spurring protests by animal rights groups and criticism from a government minister.

The local forestry corps shot the bear, known as KJ1, after tracing her via her radio collar - used for tracking and monitoring wild animals - on the orders of Maurizio Fugatti, head of the provincial authority in Trento.

"KJ1 was a dangerous specimen," the local authority said, adding that the bear had come into contact with people seven times, including the incident in which a French jogger was hurt.

However, Italy's environment minister joined animal rights groups in condemning the action.

"The killing of individual bears is not the solution to the problem," minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said in a statement, adding he had told local leader Fugatti his view.

The area around the city of Trento, which was re-populated with bears from 1999 under an EU-funded programme, has seen several bear attacks in recent years, raising questions about how to achieve successful cohabitation with the animals.

The minister said Italy was paying the price for having used the image of the bear to market the region to tourists, and that sterilisation was one way to deal with the issue.

The International Organization for Animal Protection (OIPA) said the bear was around 22 years old and had three cubs who would struggle to survive on their own.

"Animals are sentient beings to be respected and looked after and not objects to be removed," OIPA said in a statement, accusing Fugatti of pursuing an "anti-bear" strategy.

Earlier this year, Trento authorities said another mother bear, who killed a jogger in 2023, was going to be relocated to a sanctuary in Germany after culling orders for her were blocked by legal challenges from environmentalists.