On 22 July a man was attacked by a bear in the Valle dei Laghi area. The man's condition is not serious; the authorities immediately issued a capture order for the animal.
"We want to be masters in our own home again" – so commented the Valle dei Laghi branch of the Lega Nord on the episode involving Angelo Metlicovez, a 70-year-old from Cadine, who on 22 July last, at around 7pm, was attacked by a brown bear (Ursus arctos) in the Valle dei Laghi area of south-western Trentino. "In our own home," says the Lega, forgetting, or ignoring, that those mountains are also the home of bears, which once populated them until humans decided they no longer wanted bears underfoot, regarded as a cumbersome obstacle to progress and civilisation.
Unchecked hunting caused bears to disappear from the Alps and, along with them, the habit of coexisting with these large mammals was lost, as the knowledge accumulated over previous centuries was forgotten and respect for the bear – which our species had always paid – was wiped away at a stroke. For thousands of years the bear held a central place in the spiritual life of the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, until the Middle Ages, when Christianity chose to do away with the ancient rituals associated with bear worship; in a short time the great plantigrade, symbol of courage, regeneration and independence, was literally eradicated from the collective imagination.
Angelo Metlicovez was attacked and injured by the bear while walking in the woods with his dog. According to reconstructions of events, the man, who sustained wounds and abrasions to his arms and legs, attempted to defend himself and then threw himself into a gully to escape the animal. At that point the bear turned back, and Metlicovez called for help and was retrieved by the rescue helicopter. His dog, Kira, was also retrieved and sustained several injuries. Based on the man's account, it appears the dog was off the lead (whereas the law requires it to be kept on one), and this may have contributed to unsettling the bear, which may have felt threatened.
After the incident, mountain rescue teams, firefighters and the forestry corps arrived at the scene, cordoned off the area and began searching for the bear with the help of dog units. The Trentino region immediately issued a capture order for the bear, deemed dangerous. "We need legislation that allows us to remove dangerous individuals – commented Trentino's provincial councillor for the Environment, Michele Dallapiccola. – It is urgent that the government takes responsibility for approving the implementing regulation we submitted more than a year ago – the only route that can allow us to remove dangerous bears. Our forestry teams are stepping up monitoring of the area where the incident took place. The immediate aim is to make the entire area safe and to collect biological samples that will allow us to identify the individual in order to decide what measures to take."
The bear, as noted, had been wiped out in the Italian Alps and returned thanks to the Life Ursus reintroduction project, launched in 1996 with European Union Life funding and promoted by the Adamello Brenta park, carried out in collaboration with the autonomous province of Trento and the national institute for wildlife. More than twenty years on, however, the project is the subject of sharp criticism. "It has got out of hand by now – said Claudio Civettini of Civica Trentina – this event should lead to a definitive assumption of political responsibility by those who can no longer manage this plan. Coexistence between humans and bears is not possible; dangerous bears must be relocated or culled."
Civettini therefore calls for the removal of bears and declares them incompatible with human presence (without bears, however, those would once again become merely mountains), yet Homo sapiens and bears have coexisted for thousands of years, albeit under different conditions. What is needed, first and foremost, is an effort to prevent the damage caused by bears and to inform tourists about how to behave in the event of an encounter with a bear, raising awareness of the importance of the species. But above all, a culture of coexistence with large carnivores needs to be rebuilt. A bear that has attacked a person cannot immediately be labelled "dangerous" or "habituated" – not until it is known whether the attack was triggered by inappropriate behaviour on the part of the man or his dog.
Some fear a repeat of the case of Daniza, the mother bear killed in 2014 following her attack (in defence of her cubs) on a mushroom picker. "Although the dynamics of the attack on a hiker by a bear are not yet clear, the usual suspects, exploiting an utterly confused situation, have wasted no time in pressing for the adoption of emergency measures, such as the removal of an as yet unidentified individual – reads a statement issued by Enpa. – In short, the anti-bear drumbeat has started up again, which is nothing other than a reflection of the broader anti-wildlife campaign that has long been under way in our country."
Roberto Marchesini, expert in zooanthropology and founder and director of the Scuola di interazione uomo animale (Siua), highlights the importance of coexistence, which must be built patiently and with awareness in order to allow a peaceful living-together of humans and large carnivores. "One cannot think of the bear in terms of a romanticised image, a postcard or a documentary that residents and tourists can admire from a distance – declared Marchesini. – Coexistence has to be built and entails a whole set of practices grounded in the recognition that the bear is a wild animal, that it needs to move across its territory and that it can become aggressive if threatened in its characteristics of territoriality and parenthood. Ethological knowledge that must form the basis of coexistence and must underpin an equally essential policy of educating those who live in the area. The population must be informed about how to behave, what should and should not be done in those environments where the bear lives." The attack could indeed be attributed to a poor understanding of bears. "One cannot think of going for a walk in a wood with a dog off the lead. The dog will pick up the scent of the wild animal; once it finds it and realises the unequal difference in size, it will return to its owner with the bear in tow. Even in this case, what behaviour did the bear display? It defended its own safety and its territory. This is not a crazed or sociopathic bear – it is simply a bear."