Taraba: Government Likely to Declare State of Emergency over Bears on Wednesday

Bratislava, April 2 (TASR) - Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) said before the cabinet session on Wednesday that he believes the government will declare a state of emergency in response to the situation concerning bears on Wednesday. According to Taraba, Slovakia is experiencing population growth among bears and will launch preventive mass culling. "While there were some 650 bear encounters in 2020, there were as many as 1,900 last year. The increase is absolutely unambiguous, the figure goes up every year. These are official reports, and so it's absolutely crucial for us to reflect on all of this," said Taraba. He views bears as an "extremely neglected problem" and warned people to expect more attacks by them in Slovakia, as it's impossible to resolve this problem overnight. Taraba pointed out that the emergency situation requires the removal of all baiting sites and that there will be clear instructions as to what to do about bears. According to him, the shooting will be carried out by special intervention teams and not hunters. At the same time, the Environment Ministry will launch an public education campaign. Taraba also said that he wrote a letter to the European Commission on Tuesday (April 1) in which he informed it what Slovakia intends to do about the bear situation. ko/df