The plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies, gathered in an extraordinary session, approved on Monday the bill aimed at measures for managing the bear population.
The bill was approved with 214 votes „in favor,” seven votes „against,” and 23 abstentions. One deputy did not vote.
The bill has already been adopted by the Senate in November 2023.
Earlier, on Monday afternoon, the bill passed with amendments in the joint session of the Agriculture and Administration committees.
One of the adopted amendments states that this year, nearly 500 bears can be killed, including the prevention quota and the intervention quota.
It has been established that, in order to prevent bear attacks on the human population and the material damages caused by these animals, for the year 2024, the harvesting of 426 brown bear specimens is approved, which represents the prevention level at the national level, and 55 brown bear specimens, representing the intervention level at the national level.
UDMR claims we have 8 thousand bears
UDMR Senator Tanczos Barna, the initiator of the project, stated that it is based on a scientific study commissioned by the Ministry of Environment, aiming to estimate the brown bear population in Romania. According to the study, experts estimated that there are between 7,400 and 8,500 brown bears in Romania and proposed the extraction of 426 specimens for prevention, as well as other interventions in cases of force majeure.
He mentioned that at the level of hunting funds, the prevention quota number was calculated based on the number of attacks on humans, attacks on sheepfolds and agricultural crops, as well as the value of the damages caused.
"The project provides for an annual intervention quota to manage issues in the areas most affected by human-bear conflicts. The annex to this legislative initiative estimates the intervention at the hunting fund level based on the severity of the issues in each hunting fund," explained the former Minister of Environment.
Representatives of the USR parliamentary group supported several amendments, but none of them were adopted.
The amendments aimed at educating the population, simplifying the intervention procedure so that mayors can quickly adopt measures to protect the community, and shooting bears exclusively by the technical staff of hunting funds, not by hunters.
"If indeed, behind this bill, there is no desire to capitalize on a tragedy just to fill some hunters' pockets with money, then let's do prevention with the specialized technical staff employed by the manager, not through hunters," stated USR Deputy Diana Buzoianu, Vice President of the Environment Committee.
Another amendment approved in the joint committee meeting aims to increase the number of CIC points from 350 to 400. CIC points represent the minimum threshold at which evaluated hunting trophies are retained in the national heritage.
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