There are between 10,000 and 12,000 bears in Romania, according to preliminary analyses of a study based on DNA samples, Romania’s Minister of the Environment, Water and Forestty Diana Buzoianu said on Thursday.

She said that the management plan for large carnivores will have to include concrete answers for managing a number of bears that exceed the capacity of the state.

„Romania has already spent many, many millions of euros to count these bears. A preliminary analysis of the study, with DNA samples – not based on traces, but a study that can hardly be disputed – indicates a preliminary count between 10,000 and 12,000. By the end of the year, we must have completed the project and have the final figures. Depending on the figures, the management plan for large carnivores will have to be implemented, which will also have to come up with some concrete answers on how we can cope, as a state, with a number that exceeds the capacity we have to manage,” she told a news conference at the Government House at the end of a government meeting.

She said that she wants both biodiversity and people’s lives to be protected.

She asked for balanced measures that take into account the existing data.

„We have to find some balanced measures, because rhetoric so far has always been extreme: either we don’t touch any bears at all, or we kill them all with hunters. And both extremes have actually led to people dying. We must manage this problem with the numbers on the table, taking into account both biodiversity and people’s lives. It is not normal for entire communities to live a nightmare, a constant fear that the alarm could be given in two seconds about the bears,” she said.

AGERPRES