Dear Feltri,
We are both convinced animal rights activists and I really appreciate her commitment to bears, which in Trentino are criminalized only because, and I use your words here, they act like bears. The other evening a delightful specimen was seen and filmed wandering the streets of a small town in the province of Trento. The event immediately reactivated those who call for the culling of these magnificent animals for safety reasons. But no one got hurt, so why reopen the usual controversies against our beloved bears? These beasts are a resource and not a danger.
Please intervene again in defense of our plantigrades.
Eugenio Martinelli
Dear Eugene,
I had the opportunity to view the amateur video, shot by a passing motorist and available on the web, in which the bear you are referring to can be seen, which aroused in me a feeling of profound tenderness as in the images the animal appears disoriented, he seems unable to find his way back to the woods, even though we know well that these beasts are able to orient themselves and that the puppy will have taken the path that brought him back to his natural habitat without too much difficulty. The incident occurred in Malé, in Val di Sole, province of Trento, an area where sightings are not rare. Consider that just a few days ago, i.e. on the night of the voting for the European elections, between Sunday and Monday, another bear, if not the same one, was observed moving within Bozzana, a hamlet in the municipality of Caldes. Let's clarify right away: no one was injured and these animals caused no damage to places or things. Their passage was completely harmless, light, so I cannot explain the violence of certain comments, such as that of a provincial councilor, Claudio Cia, who spoke, regarding the bear in question, of danger and lethal power . Exaggerated terms and expressions, which however are not surprising when we take into account the fact that the CIA itself is recognized as being among the most convinced and avid promoters of the law which allows eight bears to be killed a year. Again for safety reasons, although the bears do not harm anyone. Of course, these are animals whose behavior can become aggressive when they feel in danger and are therefore afraid. So how can we resolve the issue while preventing someone from getting hurt? Certainly not by slaughtering innocent bears, but by ensuring that they do not feel threatened by humans. Violence is the solution to which the stupid resorts.
And we have a lot of stupid people. We should stop persecuting bears, locking them up, condemning them to death, stunning them with drugs, castrating them to make them sedentary, operations and punishments that, for example, the extraordinary bear M49, whose magnificent exploits have fascinated us for months, has undergone. and held in suspense. We were rooting for him, so that, after yet another escape, he wouldn't be caught again by his persecutors and put behind bars.
Politics must do more to protect animals and citizens. But this task is conditioned by the unhealthy tendency of individuals within the parties to caress, out of pure interest, the hunters, who constitute an important pool of votes. Promoting bear hunting or something similar is a way of winking at a slice of the electorate, guaranteeing their favor. All at the expense of delicious animals whose survival it is our duty to protect.
Animal rights associations believe that adequate prevention measures aimed at ensuring the safety of residents, hikers and animals are lacking, if not completely absent, and that this is what determines the so-called trespassing, i.e. the access of wildlife to the centers
inhabited. Here, before thinking about and proposing killing the bear, it would be appropriate to adopt those measures and precautions aimed at preventing bears from being able to push close to urban centers and enter them.