How about Europe?

Saw this article -

The bear — a fugitive from Italy named JJ1 but dubbed Bruno by German media — ambled into Germany last month, becoming the first wild bear seen in the country since 1835. He was part of a program in northern Italy to reintroduce the animals in the Alps

Are there no bears in Europe anymore? We live in an area in the US that looks a bit like Germany and we have lots of black bears wandering the hills. If so, this is so sad. No wonder so many posts about seeing bears in Yellowstone.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060626/...ny_bear_killed

There are bears in bits of Europe – Russia, Finland, the Pyrenees, Eastern Europe, Shetlands (hiding) but they are very rare. Farmers hate them for obvious reasons. We certainly don’t have them like you do. We did once upon a time but we killed them.

More info here….


http://www.wwf.org.uk/news/n_0000000182.asp

That's so sad. I'll appreciate my local bears even more now.

I live in Denver and have seen a few bears in the many mountain parks within an hour to two hours from my home. They are magnificent animals

It wasn't us, 200 years ago a common person was executed for killing a bear. Game hunting was only for nobility.
It's really sad. He'll be brought to a museum in Munich for exhibition, how sick is that?

"Are there no bears in Europe anymore?"

Lots of bears where I live (Finland). They used to be rare, but nowadays the population has increased considerably. There are bears even in the capital area. They seem to get used to people and are not so shy any more. Which of course is not good if you live in an urban area.

I think it's disgraceful that the German authorities allowed the bear to be killed by hunters. It could easily have been drugged and sent back to Italy. Or in extremis the forest rangers should have killed it themselves and not for sport. This was the worst possible end. Public opinion in Italy is horrified. It turns out that he only killed a few chickens. The sheep were nothing to do with this bear. I'm not certain about bear re-population but I'm definitely sure this is not the correct way to deal with the issue.

According to most articles I've read here, the bear could not have been captured & released back into the wild elsewhere as he had become too used to being around humans and was potentially dangerous. Given the choice of killing him or locking him up in a zoo for the rest of his life, killing him seems kinder to me.

Many types of larger wildlife are scarce in most of europe - because it has been heavily settled for so long. Why the Germans killed the bear - I don;t get.

I do know we had a client visit from London recently and she was amazed that there are coyotes in New York City (including Manhattan), lots of bears in New Jersey suburbs/backyards and more deer in the whole NYC metro area than anyone can figure out what to do with. Oh - and she was horrified that we're re-introducing wolves into the adirondacks - she seemed to think life is like Little Red Riding Hood.