Romania, brown bear – © Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock

In Romania, the national brown bear conservation plan, financed with EU funds, is proceeding amid delays, controversy and a contested census. Meanwhile, the European country with the largest population of plantigrades is struggling to balance conservation and safety

25/06/2025 – 
Marco Ranocchiari

Really or figuratively, in Transylvania it is almost impossible, sooner or later, not to come across a bear. It is evoked by shop signs, labels on bottles and souvenirs, even graffiti on walls. Hikers – not to mention those who work in the mountains – actually do encounter the bear. Almost always it goes well, sometimes very badly.

Romania is the European country with the largest bear population and one of those where the relationship with the animal, with its ups and downs, is most deeply rooted. Today, however, the coexistence between the two plantigrades (humans are too) is becoming more problematic.

While illegal logging and climate change push the animals closer to inhabited centers, where they find abundant waste to feed on, the mountains are populated by hikers, increasing the chances of encounters, and sometimes the bear becomes the very destination of the trip of incautious tourists. The result: 26 victims since 2000 (last summer a girl who was just 19, while this spring an esteemed member of the Alpine rescue team ended up in a coma), exasperated farmers and shepherds, a flourish of conspiracy theories with an increasingly strong polarization of opinions.

Over the years, Romanian politics has been torn between opposing tensions: on the one hand, conservation, also imposed by European directives, on the other, voices calling for a more muscular approach. The national brown bear conservation program, financed by European cohesion funds, is trying to reduce the conflict and preserve the species. But it has arrived late, and the first results – including a census still underway but which would see the estimated number of specimens even double – are heavily contested by activists and part of the academic world.

Political turnarounds

With the approaching and then entry into the European Union, Romania has progressively adhered to the conventions that consider the brown bear a strictly protected species. As in most member states where the animal is present, in reality, the derogation of a certain quota of specimens had always been permitted, but, in 2016, hunting was completely stopped.

In 2024, with the controversy increasingly heated and the incidents showing no signs of decreasing, Bucharest reinstated the authorization to kill 426 specimens as a “preventive” measure.

The perennial oscillation between conservation and iron fist also emerges from the belief, repeatedly reiterated by government officials, that the “optimal” population in the country is just four thousand bears, much lower than the current one. An objective that is difficult to reconcile with the animal’s protected status.

In the meantime, amidst the ups and downs, the country was trying to adapt to the Habitats Directive which, in addition to safeguarding the species, requires accurate monitoring of the population and an organic management plan for conflict mitigation.

In 2018, the National Action Plan for the Conservation of the Brown Bear was launched, financed with 11 million euros from European Cohesion funds. It was supposed to be ready by the end of 2023, but it has not yet been completed, for reasons that the government attributes to bureaucratic delays, technical problems and the pandemic. The funding was thus redistributed for the period 2021-2027.

Census: a disputed “record”

The census of the population on a genetic basis is one of the central measures of the plan.

Sampling to isolate the DNA of the different specimens starting from traces such as hair and feces began in 2023, and is still ongoing. In April of this year, Minister Mircea Fechet disclosed the preliminary outcome. With surprising results: the bears are between 10,419 and 12,770, twice all the estimates accepted so far at national and international level.

The data has obviously reinvigorated calls to reopen hunting, but it has also raised strong doubts among academics and activists, especially because the methodology used has not yet been made public.

The reasons for the dissent are first of all technical: since it is impossible to find genetic traces of all bears, the count is normally done on a statistical basis, based on the ratio between new specimens identified and those that appear in multiple samplings. Normally, “at the beginning of a genetic study, most of the samples come from new individuals, while as the number of samples increases, the rate of discovery of new individuals decreases”, writes WWF Romania in a fiery press release.

To arrive at the estimates provided by the government, the probability of finding new individuals would instead have to continually increase. “Either the laws of mathematics have changed – the association concludes sarcastically – or we are faced with a world first, which changes not only the philosophy of bear management, but science itself”.

Furthermore – adds Ruben Iosif, a researcher who monitors large carnivores for the Conservation Carpathia Foundation (the largest NGO dedicated to conservation in the Romanian mountains), the fact that the study has been going on for three years may lead to an overestimation of the population, because it does not take into account the specimens that have died in the meantime. “They say that the mortality factor has been considered, but only the official mortality, that is, the bears killed, not the natural and illegal ones”, due to poaching.

The Ministry of the Environment was unfazed. “The complete methodology will be made public at the end of the project”, it assured OBCT, “and the final results will be presented at a conference open to academics, international experts and NGOs”. 

Other measures

The plan includes many other actions, including the installation (already carried out) of 1,140 electric fences, while a call for proposals is open to select hundreds of buildings that will be protected in the same way.

A study is also underway for a new zoning of the territory that will distinguish between “key” areas for conservation, strictly protected, and others where interventions to manage conflicts (including culling and “transfers”) will be easier, with various intermediate gradations.

Plans include public communication activities to encourage correct behavior, training of authorized personnel, and a system of signs to stop the very harmful trend of many motorists to leave food on the edge of some roads in the hope of approaching the plantigrades.

Finally, a new “sanctuary” near Timisul de Sus will host specimens considered dangerous. Since it was announced in 2018, in reality, almost nothing has been heard about it. “It will be completed by the end of the project,” the ministry simply confirmed.

Between delays and lack of collaboration with local entities and associations, however, many are skeptical. “The plan is now old, and there is no real strategy for biodiversity. The one we had expired in 2020 and no one has mentioned it since. We [the associations] were informed about the objectives and activities, but then there was no more communication”, comments Christian-Remus Papp, national manager for wildlife at WWF Romania. For Ruben Iosif, the entire discussion is based on sometimes wrong narratives, such as the one according to which – regardless of the still vague numbers of the census – there are now too many bears.

“Their density is not directly correlated with either the number or the severity of the incidents”. Instead, he continues, it is important to focus on problematic individuals accustomed to human presence, which can and must be removed. Cullings with the aim of reducing the number, in addition to the ecological damage, could be counterproductive, especially if they are delegated to hunters looking for trophies. “Will they go into the mountains to find the most sought-after specimens or will they stay around the village to remove the truly dangerous specimens?” asks Iosif.

A varied panorama

While waiting for the measures of the Plan to have an impact on the territory, at a local level society is not standing by and watching. In the country, it is true, there is an abundance of incorrect behaviors that end up accustoming bears to human presence, from careless waste management to the habit of feeding the animals to make them easier for tourists to observe.

However, there is no shortage of successful coexistence initiatives. Like Baile Tusnad, a small Hungarian-speaking municipality, where thanks to an innovative project that was able to combine scientific research and the active involvement of the inhabitants, virtual risk maps based on the actual behavior of the bears were created and electrified barriers and anti-bear bins were installed in strategic positions that in four years have almost eliminated the conflict.

Conservation Carpathia, on the other hand, has acquired some mountain forests and pastures to manage them with a view to conservation, and has established constructive relationships not only with farmers, who can turn to them for support, but also with hunters.

More linked to the ethical aspect than to the conservationist one, “Libearty”, founded by activist Cristina Lapis, is the largest “sanctuary” in the world for bears – rescued from captivity or “problematic” – which over the years has also become a safe and sustainable tourist attraction.

The road to coexistence is bumpy and never without risks. But in a country where the relationship with the bear is so close, many are convinced that it is worth taking.

This article is published in the context of the project “Cohesion4Climate“ co-financed by the European Union. The EU is in no way responsible for the information or views expressed within the framework of the project; the responsibility lies solely with OBCT.