Slovakia declared a state of emergency and launched a mass culling of bears across the country.

Unfortunate bears suffer not only in Russia but all over the world. Right now, a real scandal is unfolding in Slovakia. At the end of March, a bear attacked a local resident, and after that, the country’s authorities announced the mass extermination of hundreds of bears! This incident clearly demonstrates how animal populations are essentially being "pushed out" of their habitats and then ultimately wiped out as a result of conflicts.

I constantly say: “Put yourself in the place of a wild animal.”

Here is your home: it’s been destroyed, your food consumed, your relatives killed. And now you are left in the forest, starving and angry! Meanwhile, the ones who caused this have plenty of food, and you can either die of hunger in the wild or try to come out and find something to eat.

Or is it impossible to compare a human to a “dumb animal”? Is a bear “something else”?

In reality, wild animals, including predators, are genetically inclined to avoid encounters with humans. I previously wrote about a study in which scientists discovered the scariest creature in the wild by playing recordings of various sounds, voices, and animal roars! And it turned out that all animals panic and flee at the sound of a human voice. Moreover, during experiments in Africa, predators even abandoned waterholes — which is an extreme degree of fear, given that water is fiercely contested there.

These are real scientific data! Therefore, if conflicts with animals arise — if wolves, bears, or tigers come to people — this indicates serious issues in the wild. It is necessary to form expert groups tasked with the full analysis and study of the ROOT CAUSES behind animals coming into contact with humans.

Yet in Russia and worldwide, it is easier to “shoot” animals emerging from the forest than to address the real problems. And every such rash action worsens the situation!

Let’s get back to Slovakia.

On Sunday, March 30, 2025, a bear attacked a person.

Here’s how the situation unfolded: a 59-year-old man was walking near the town of Detva (Central Slovakia, the Podpoľanie region) in the evening. Later, his body was found under Mount Kochlačka, just 200 meters from the nearest houses. According to preliminary findings by investigators and the coroner’s office, the man died from an attack by a brown bear: he had severe lacerations and a fatal head injury, characteristic of a large predator attack. Rescuers evacuated the victim’s body from the forest late at night with enhanced security, as the predator could still have been nearby.

This is only the SECOND CASE IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF SLOVAKIA, meaning bears usually do not kill people. Nevertheless, conflicts do occur because animals have to live near humans, constantly “stepping back” as people “develop” more and more areas of the wild.

For example, just three weeks before the killing of this man in the same town (Detva), there were two separate conflicts with bears. Tourists went into the wild where a mother bear was living with her cubs. In that case, there were no human casualties — the tourists began vigorously hitting the mother bear on the head with an axe, as reported by local media.

So there you have it!

After the killing of the 59-year-old man, the mayor of Detva convened an emergency crisis council, doing so the very next day after the incident, as if he had been prepared in advance! And immediately the head of the Slovak Ministry of the Environment, Tomáš Taraba, publicly declared that the country needed radical measures — a mass culling of bears had to begin.

According to him, the brown bear population in Slovakia has long been out of control, and “we cannot live in a country where people are afraid to go into the forest.” Prime Minister Robert Fico supported this position, emphasizing that human life and safety are a priority: “We cannot live in a country where a person becomes prey for a bear,” Fico said, pointing out that the number of encounters with predators had sharply increased. The death in Detva became the trigger many believed was “missing” for decisive governmental action.

Look at how events are developing — does it ring a bell?

Let’s discuss the population of brown bears in Slovakia. The brown bear lives in the country’s mountainous and forested regions, primarily in the Carpathians. Population data vary but converge in the range of 1,000–1,300 individuals. Meanwhile, I found a scientific study from 2023 conducted jointly by Charles University in Prague, the Czech University of Life Sciences, the University of Ostrava, and the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic: according to their calculations, Slovakia’s brown bear population is about 1,056 individuals.

Naturally, the authorities claim a much higher estimate — for instance, the Environment Minister Taraba spoke of a population above 1,300 individuals! I’m not in the least surprised by such “estimates”; it’s the same story we hear from our own officials (in Russia).

It’s also worth noting that the brown bear is a protected species in Slovakia. It is listed in the Red Book and protected by the EU Habitats Directive (Annexes II and IV of Directive 92/43/EEC) and the Bern Convention as a species requiring strict protection. Bear hunting has been banned in Slovakia since 1932, except for strictly regulated culling or the removal of dangerous individuals under special permits.

In fact, anti-bear campaigns have been going on for several years, so I’m not surprised that after the very first fatal conflict, they immediately call for shooting them. For example, in 2023, the speaker of parliament Boris Dollar dramatically claimed that bears “had become man-eaters” and that their numbers had to be urgently reduced! The entire upper echelons of Slovak power share a similar view.

In 2024 (when there were still no fatal cases and certainly no “man-eating bears”), on March 21, the Slovak parliament approved an amendment to legislation making it easier to shoot bears. With this bill, officials simply removed the bear from the list of protected species. These amendments sparked outrage among environmentalists and the scientific community, but they weren’t even listened to.

Bears began to be “selectively” culled throughout the country, but there were still no massive quotas! A trigger was needed so as not to provoke public anger. Something had to happen that could be used to justify large-scale culling.

And suddenly, “coincidentally,” exactly a year later — a bear attack with a fatal outcome. A 59- year-old man is killed!

A mere three days after the Detva attack, on April 2, 2025, the Slovak government met in an extraordinary session. Prime Minister Robert Fico’s cabinet unanimously adopted two related resolutions: the introduction of a state of emergency in several regions of the country and authorization for the unscheduled culling of 350 brown bears in spring–summer 2025.

That is, THE ENTIRE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT came together over a single killing by a bear (was it really a bear that killed him?) and instantly, as if following pre-prepared guidelines, decided on a large-scale cull.

I reviewed all the original data and found the source of these initiatives — it turns out the State Nature Conservancy had already drafted a plan to kill 350 bears in the country. It was “on the table,” waiting for its time. As soon as the trigger appeared, the authorities immediately employed it to legalize the mass killing of bears!

Essentially, the government approved this proposal, citing the “undesirable spread of the brown bear” and the threat it represents.

A state of emergency (SoE) was declared at once in 49 of Slovakia’s 79 districts — primarily those where bears reside. The SoE came into effect on April 2 at 2:00 PM and granted special powers to the authorities. In particular, the Ministry of the Environment (led by Taraba) was tasked with issuing permits for exemptions from environmental legislation for bear culling. In other words, for the duration of the SoE, the ban on destroying this protected species was partially lifted, allowing bears to be legally shot without individual review of each case.

The key problem is that officials allocated a quota to kill 350 bears just for the summer of 2025. That amounts to the destruction of ONE QUARTER OF ALL THE BEARS IN THE COUNTRY in a matter of a few months!

Meanwhile, the authorities specifically imposed a nationwide SoE to circumvent European legislation. EU directives only allow the culling of genuinely “problematic” animals! Mass extermination is prohibited under European law. Hence the need to proclaim a nationwide state of emergency.

In other words, to stress the point: Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) has created a DANGEROUS PRECEDENT, whereby they sidestep restrictions through emergency measures and enact mass killings of animals. We have seen something similar in African countries, where in the summer of 2024 they began exterminating animals in reserves for meat, hiding behind humanitarian issues!

Slovakia has now created a similar dangerous precedent.

The Slovak authorities justified this by saying the situation is indeed critical: half the country is afraid to go into the forest, tourism is suffering, and bears are “running rampant” near settlements. Environment Minister Taraba declared that “the threats to life and health have become real, and we have no choice but wide-scale population regulation.” He noted that Slovakia is following the example of Romania, which a year earlier introduced a “preventive quota” for bear culling after similar attacks. As a reminder, Romania in 2022–2023 allowed culling up to 480 bears annually, which drew criticism from the European Commission. Taraba expressed confidence that now the same sort of preventive quota would become the new norm in Slovakia: “I am sure that, just as was done in Romania, we will soon introduce a preventive bear culling quota on a permanent basis.”

Here’s the key phrase: “WE WILL INTRODUCE A PREVENTIVE BEAR CULLING QUOTA ON A PERMANENT BASIS.” That’s it. The end.

Now for the “dessert.”

A special role in promoting the mass extermination of bears was played by the influential hunting lobby in the Slovak government. For instance, Rudolf Hulyak, the Minister of the Environment and Tourism, is known as an avid hunter. On the day the decision was made, he held a separate press conference, where he stated that “the country is overrun with bears” and blamed the predators... for a 40 cline in tourism in certain areas. According to him, people stop hiking out of fear of bears.

However, major media outlets immediately refuted his claims! Journalists published data showing that in 2022–2023, tourism increased in all regions of Slovakia.

We see the same kind of blatant misinformation from officials as we do in our own country, where laws are justified with utterly ridiculous arguments. And everything happens “as if copied” — following the same playbook.

In short, the announcement of the plan to exterminate 350 bears in Slovakia and the introduction of further “preventive quotas on a permanent basis” caused a storm of criticism from the scientific community and the public.

On March 31, 2025, immediately after Taraba unveiled his plan, several leading environmental NGOs in Slovakia issued a joint statement of protest. The “My sme les” (“We Are Forest”) initiative, the Aevis and WWF Slovensko foundations, as well as the legal organization Via Iuris, vehemently condemned the plan for a mass cull, calling it both illegal and senseless. They reminded the government that “plošný odstrel” (total culling) contradicts Slovakia’s international obligations, and that the minister, in giving such an order, “knowingly breaches legal provisions.” “Destroying so many bears will not solve the problem but will only make it worse,” the environmentalists claimed, demanding instead systemic preventive measures.

Experts on large predators pointed out that there is no evidence that culling reduces bearhuman conflicts. In their statement they emphasized:

“It is scientifically proven that culling bears does not reduce conflicts with humans. Last year, 144 bears were killed — a record high in a century — yet conflicts did not disappear, as evidenced by the case in Poľana (Detva). Despite the fact that the Poľana region had the country’s second-largest culling of bears in 2024, a tragic incident still took place.”

Indeed, the tragedy occurred in an area where predators had recently been heavily culled — but that did not save a human life.

“For over a year, we have been observing chaotic state actions — enacting various laws, declaring states of emergency, record-high culling — all of which led to another tragedy. It’s time to understand that this path doesn’t work,” said Pavol Žilinčík of WWF Slovakia. He called the Environment Ministry’s decisions “incompetent and inconsistent,” accusing the agency of ignoring scientific evidence and legislation. According to WWF calculations, if the “350 plan” goes ahead, over two years Slovakia will lose nearly half of its bear population (about 500 animals out of ~1000) with no guarantee of increased human safety.

International conservation organizations supported their Slovak counterparts. Of particular significance was an open letter published at the end of 2024 by two authoritative bear expert associations — Large Carnivores of Europe (LCIE) under the IUCN and the International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA). In response to earlier changes to Slovak legislation, these organizations cautioned that the new policy for managing Slovakia’s bear population violates EU requirements and threatens the entire Carpathian bear population. “Bears migrate freely across borders, and Slovakia’s actions will affect neighboring countries — Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine,” said the letter. Telemetry studies showed that up to 80% of tracked bears in Poland entered Slovak territory. Hence, a large-scale cull in one part of the Carpathians could significantly reduce the overall population in neighboring states, nullifying their own conservation efforts.

It appears that the cited figure of 1,000–1,300 individuals could actually encompass THE ENTIRE CARPATHIAN POPULATION — that is, the total number of bears across several countries. Each country counts it as its “national” population, yet it is really a single population roaming between borders.

Experts from LCIE and IBA emphasized that killing bears indiscriminately can disrupt the population’s social structure and behavior: there is an increase in infanticide (males killing cubs not their own), a drop in offspring survival, changes in animals’ activity, and so on. All these factors weaken the population and may even increase conflict (for instance, after removing dominant individuals, more aggressive bears might take their place). “There is no data showing that indiscriminate killing reduces conflicts,” the authors of the letter concluded. Moreover, they noted that “The last fatal case (March 2025) occurred just a few months after the start of mass culling,” meaning this policy has already proven ineffective. LCIE and IBA urged the Slovak authorities to focus on conflict prevention and public education, bring their policy in line with EU standards, and conduct independent assessments of measures based on science.

LET’S SUM UP

I’d like to remind everyone that we are also seeing real chaos with bears in Russia. For the 2024–2025 hunting season alone, officials have issued over 42,000 bear-culling quotas, coinciding with the booming sports-hunting industry where the bear is regarded as a “prestigious trophy.” Furthermore, a few years ago, Russia’s Federal Security Service and Prosecutor General’s Office unanimously stood up for bear protection and even asked the government to list them in the Red Book! These agencies stated that the bear population was plummeting and nearing extinction.

But… that scandal was hushed up, and afterward, regional authorities started issuing more and more bear-culling permits! It has reached the point that in 2025, killing more than 42,000 bears is permitted across the country.

So we see the same actions happening worldwide, and Slovakia, a European country, is a vivid example!

Spread this material and share it with others! The global destruction of nature on our planet continues, driven by human hands.

Mandatory reading:

• We oppose extended hunting seasons for bears (winter hunting in Russia). Join our public initiative!
• In Russia, authorities have issued quotas to kill over 42 thousand bears: explore our registry
• Why do they want to exterminate bears in Russia? We delve into the problem.
• In Russia, hungry bears are slaughtered for fat: how the master of the Russian Taiga goes hungry
• Brothers in mind: how intelligent are bears?
• Romania joined in the extermination of bears
• Why do bears approach humans? What scientists say

© PAVEL PASHKOV