Another bear attack in Slovakia was reported by Új Szó Online with reference to the Nový Čas portal. This time, the predator struck in Gerebes (Povina) in the Kysucké Nové Mesto district, and the victim was a hiking man.
According to the mayor of the village, the man is a volunteer firefighter who decided to go for a walk on the mountain after a professional presentation. He made the phone call himself after being attacked by the bear. He was bitten on the inside of his left thigh and bruised on his right hip. He received a shock and was taken to the hospital in Zsolna.
Similar cases are occurring more and more often in Slovakia. In mid-March, a bear injured five people in downtown Liptószentmiklós. This animal was shot a few days later. The series continued in April, with one attack in the Liptószentmiklós district and the other in the Polyána mountains.
We asked Soňa Mäkka, Denník’s journalist who deals a lot with bear attacks, about the current cases and the general bear situation. Mäkká mentioned a Czech research regarding the size of the bear population in Slovakia: according to this, university researchers came up with a number of around 1056 individuals, which was criticized by other Slovak researchers due to the insufficient number of samples, but this was also reported to the European Commission.
Together with Romania, which is also struggling with bear attacks, Slovakia wants to reach the Council of Ministers of Environmental Protection of the European Union so that the bears belong to a lower category, so that they can be shot more easily.
