By Jason G. Goldman
Shoot a bear in Croatia, and you can skin it and turn the hide into a rug to adorn the floor of your living room. Or, if you wanted, you could hack off its head, stuff it, mount it, and hang it above your fireplace. Or you could butcher it, store the ursine bounty in your freezer, and eat well for a year.
Just north of the border, in neighboring Slovenia, hunting for brown bears (Ursos arctos) will land you in hot water. That’s because hunting is explicitly prohibited under EU legislation, as brown bears are a protected species.
You’d think that bear life would be better in Slovenia than in Croatia. But you’d be wrong. That’s because, according to new open-access research published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research, Croatians have better attitudes when it comes to bears than Slovenians do. Croatia recently joined the European Union. What would happen if they altered their bear management policy to fall in line with the EU’s policy, as Slovenia has?
Under the current system in Croatia, 10 to 15 percent of the total bear population can be killed each year. Individual hunting organizations are each allocated a portion of that overall quota. Those organizations, in turn, sell permits for the trophy hunting of bears to hunters. Together, according to researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Zagreb, this has led to several benefits for the country. For one thing, the local economy benefits and hunting organizations can provide employment for locals. In addition, through the revenue generated by the sale of hunting permits, hunting organizations compensate farmers for any damage, most of which is to apiaries. Winnie the Pooh, after all, isn’t the only honey-loving bear.
In Croatia, it is illegal to hunt females who are still caring for their cubs, and the method of hunting is tightly controlled. More....