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[size=85:1stxgk2c]novinite 18 May 2010

Killer Bear Terrorizes Bulgarian Village

A 65-year-old man has been killed by a bear in the Rhodope Mountains in Southern Bulgaria.

According to Commissar Kiril Hadzhihristev, head of the Regional Police Directorate of the Smolyan District, it is absolutely certain that the victim, Nikola Shikov from the village of Kutela, was attacked and killed by a bear Monday afternoon.

Shikov is believed to have been out in the local forest collecting firewood when he fell pray to the killer bear.

Local people have discovered his mutilated corpse later. They have traced the blood tracks to the den of the animal.

Emil Stoyanov, mayor of Kutela, has explained that the residents of the village are in a state of horror, and are afraid to leave their homes.

He also said there had been attacks by bears on domestic animals and bee-hives every single year in the last five years but that the bears never dared to attack a human before.

“I am very concerned because according to recent data there are some 220 bears living in the Smolyan Municipality. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the bears are starving because there is no functioning system for supplying food for them. Yet, humans should not become food for the bears,” stated Smolyan Mayor Dora Yankova as quoted by dir.bg.

Yankova has called upon everybody in the area to be alert over the danger, and has moved to convene a meeting of all responsible local institutions including the Regional Environment and Waters Inspectorate, the Regional Forestry Agency, and the police in order to figure out a solution to what appears to be an emering starving bears issue.

Nice one George

[size=55:b54tefm9]novinite

Bulgaria's Govt to Tackle 'Brown Bear-Human' Conflict

Bulgaria's Environment Ministry has crafted a curiously entitled project - "
Plan for Dealing with the Brown Bear-Human Conflict"
to address the 2010 incidents of killer bear attacks.

The plan proposes to resolve the "
brown bear-human"
conflict by introducing several measures said to help manage the population of brown bears in Southern Bulgaria.

In 2010, there were two cases of killer bear attacks on people in Bulgaria's southern Smolyan District in the Rhodope Mountain, one of them lethal, as well as a number of attacks on domestic animals.

The plan has been drafted in cooperation with State Forestry Agency, which is part of the Agriculture Ministry, and several NGOs.

The measures to crack down on the "
human-bear conflict"
include providing electronic monitoring devices and cameras to follow the population of brown bears, instructing local on how to treat them, removing dump sites that can attract bears close to villages and towns, planting fruit trees to provide additional food source for bears.

This is good news if they mean it for both humans and the bears, perhaps it might also help with other matters like tourism and such like.