Vital restoration… or utter madness? Debate rages after released 360kg killer bears terrorise Italian villages

Surrounded by forests below the rugged peaks of the Alps, the mountain village of Caldes is officially considered one of the most beautiful places in Italy.

But today many villagers are afraid to go into these forests. One elderly woman told me she had given up hiking and taking photos in nature. Her neighbor pointed to the hiking trails that he no longer walks every weekend.

72-year-old Giuseppe Rizzi, chairman of the local council, no longer walks his dog to his allotment in the forest. And his wife Alba no longer feels safe after dark. She says: “I can't remember ever being so afraid as a child.”

The reason for the great fear of these villagers – many of whom come from a generation of hardy mountain dwellers who lived as hunters and shepherds – is simple: a neighbor was bitten to death by a bear while jogging last year.

The attack on 26-year-old Andrea Papi while jogging in the Dolomites shocked Italy and sparked a nationwide debate about the wisdom of a policy to reintroduce brown bears there.

Andrea Papi, 26, (right) was bitten to death by a bear in Italy and tried to scare it away with a broken branch, investigators believe. His girlfriend Alessia Gregori (left) reported him missing.

The conflict pitted politicians against animal rights activists and conservationists against the local population. Although the country's highest court saved the bear from being killed, she is now in captivity. Animal experts complain about the cruelty of her “prison sentence”.

The controversy flared up again recently after another bear was killed on the orders of the region's governor following an attack on a French tourist. In an unexpected twist, the victim, Vivien Triffaux, 43, said afterwards that he was “really sad” about his role in the death of a bear protecting her cubs, adding: “It really pains me that our encounter cost her her life.”

The saga of dealing with aggressive bears following the success of a restoration project in the Italian Alps comes at a time when hundreds of other brown bears are being killed across Europe – from Sweden to Romania.

“We have lost all sense of direction in this matter,” says environmentalist Francesco Romito. “We need to protect the bears for the future, but also understand the fears of the local population.”

The bear now in captivity responsible for the first fatal animal injury in Italy in 150 years has been named JJ4. She is the fourth daughter of Joze and Jurka, two bears captured in Slovenia more than two decades ago and released with eight others in a national park near Trento.

Their relocation was part of a project called Life Ursus, which was launched after bears in the region were threatened with extinction.

This EU-supported program to reintroduce the predators at the top of the food chain was considered a success. At least 120 bears now live in the region. Inevitably, encounters with humans occurred.

After a female bear attacked French tourist Vivien Triffaux (pictured), the region's governor ordered her to be killed.

The bear, JJ4, was tranquilized (pictured) and is now in captivity after the country's highest court spared him. JJ4 was responsible for Italy's first fatal abuse in 150 years.

Eurasian brown bears are large animals. They can grow larger than a human, weigh up to 360 kg and run at 56 km/h, with males covering long distances. Although they are normally shy of humans and largely nocturnal, they can become aggressive when frightened – especially mothers with cubs.

After Andrea Papi was killed by JJ4, it was discovered that the bear had been involved in an attack four years earlier – attacking a man who was hiking with his father. There have been at least six more attacks over the past decade that have resulted in serious injuries.

Many houses in Caldes now have banners demanding “Justice for Andrea” on them. His father Carlo told me that people are angry about the renaturation project and the lack of information given to residents about the attacks.

“I'm angry,” said the retired head waiter. “The authorities knew there was a dangerous bear out there, but they didn't warn anyone.”

“We are waiting for justice, but it seems like it will never come. We want someone to be held accountable – someone to go to jail. The decision to reintroduce bears was a disaster.”

Residents of Caldes told me that a bear had been spotted in a children's playground the previous night. A few days earlier, one woman said, a car had been badly damaged because a bear had climbed on it to get fruit from a tree. Alberto Perli, mayor of Andalo, a popular tourist resort, said even fixing garbage bins in concrete had not stopped these powerful animals from tipping them over to look for food. Authorities are now building underground garbage bins.

Eurasian brown bears are large animals. They can grow larger than a human, weigh up to 360 kg and charge at 56 km/h, with males covering great distances.

Surveys conducted by the Trentino wildlife authority have shown that the reintroduction project was initially met with great approval, but now 70 percent of locals are dissatisfied with the booming bear population.

Franca Ghirardini, 61, the mother of the fatally wounded jogger, complained that local residents were never consulted about the renaturation.

Nevertheless, the uproar following her son's death was so great that she and her husband were subjected to a flood of hate mail and insults on social media, which led to 21 reports being filed with the police.

Due to the hostility that the initial decision to shoot down JJ4 provoked among animal lovers, some regional government employees have also resigned.

The bear's life – as well as that of another animal that had attacked a hiker – was spared after activists appealed to Italy's highest court and judges ruled that killing the bear would be a “disproportionate” punishment.

Claudio Groff, head of the large carnivore department in Trento, said JJ4 would probably be deported to Germany later this year. “Living with bears means removing those that pose a danger to humans,” he said.

Marina Chini of the animal rights group Collettivo Scobi, which opposed the killing of JJ4, says the risk of being attacked by a bear is negligible compared to other dangers in the mountains. “Many, many more people are killed by cars,” she said.

Although brown bears are normally shy of people and predominantly nocturnal, they can react aggressively when they are frightened – especially mothers with cubs.

Alessandro de Guelmi, a retired veterinarian who captured 18 bears in Trentino between 2014 and 2019 for research and public safety while supervising the captures, said a “fantastic” program had been ruined after it was taken over by politicians. “I've never had a problem because bears are intelligent. If you know what you're doing, they won't hurt you,” he said.

He explained that it is a normal reaction to scream when confronted with a bear, “but that scares him.” He told me how he once encountered a sleeping bear. “I gently pulled on his cheek, like you would a cat or a child, and he opened his eyes. I thought he was going crazy, but when he opened his eyes, I knew everything was OK. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. It felt like he was smiling at me.”

Still, he believes it is better to kill wild animals than to keep them behind bars. “Captivity is the worst thing you can do to a bear – it must either be free or die.”