When a 19-year-old girl was mauled to death by a wild bear in Romania last month, the country’s response was swift: double the number of animals culled every year.
In Italy, however, the killing of a female bear who injured a French hiker has sparked an agonised public debate on how to handle aggressive specimens within the country’s growing bear population.
“All other countries shoot dangerous bears. But here, shooting a bear is a kind of national drama,” said Piero Genovesi, head of wildlife co-ordination at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, a…