Italian villages terrorised by rampaging bear but law protects animal

A brown bear has gone on the rampage in the Italian Dolomites, killing donkeys, chickens and sheep and prompting shepherds and farmers to call for it to be killed.

Published: 5:58PM BST 21 May 2010

The male bear, which has been nicknamed Dino, is suspected of killing six donkeys and several sheep in the last 10 days, with some of the animals left disembowelled.

It has also raided chicken coops and scooped honey out of bee hives.

Anxious locals in the mountains around the town of Asiago fear that it is only a matter of time before the bear attacks a hiker or shepherd.

But brown bears are protected under Italian law, and more than 15,000 Italians have signed up to a Facebook page demanding that the beast be left unharmed, despite the havoc it is wreaking among livestock.

To complicate matters, it has become increasingly difficult to establish Dino's location because he has shed a radio tracking collar that was fitted around his neck. The bear can cover up to 30 miles in a day.

"I'm worried for the safety of cows up in the pastures, but we also have an obligation to protect the bear and avoid any sort of violent end," said Attilio Schneck, the president of the local province of Vicenza.

Dino was one of several bears born in Slovenia and brought to Italy in an attempt to re-establish the species in the Dolomites, once part of their natural range.

Bears are bouncing back in Italy, after decades of hunting, poaching and persecution by farmers caused their numbers to plummet.

While brown bears now roam the north of Italy, the rare Marsican sub-species is thriving in the central Appenine range, with around 50 bears estimated to be living in a national park in the Abruzzo region.

Italy was outraged in 2006 when one of "their" bears, a male called Bruno, wandered across the Alps into Bavaria and was shot dead by German hunters.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7750045/Italian-villages-terrorised-by-rampaging-bear-but-law-protects-animal.html