Vital rewilding… or utter insanity? Debate rages as freed 800lb killer bears terrorise Italian villages

The mountain village of Caldes, surrounded by forests at the foot of the jagged peaks of the Alps, has been officially recognised as one of the most beautiful places in Italy.

Yet many villagers are now afraid to go into those forests. An elderly woman told me that she had stopped walking and photographing nature. Her neighbor pointed out the paths where he no longer walks every weekend.

Giuseppe Rizzi, 72, president of the village council, has stopped walking his dog to visit his allotment in the woods. And his wife Alba doesn’t feel safe going out late at night, saying: ‘I can’t remember ever being so scared when I was growing up.’

The reason these villagers – many of whom have been tough mountain dwellers for generations, living as hunters and herders – are so afraid is simple: a neighbour was mauled to death by a female bear while out running last year.

The attack on 26-year-old Andrea Papi, who was jogging in the Dolomites, shocked Italy and sparked a national debate over 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 fight it off with a broken branch, investigators believe. He was reported missing by his girlfriend Alessia Gregori (left)

The conflict pitted politicians against animal rights activists, conservationists against local people. Meanwhile, the bear, despite being saved from being put to death by the country’s Supreme Court, is now in prison, with wildlife experts complaining about the cruelty of her “prison sentence.”

The controversy recently flared up again after another female 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 at the time that he was “very sad” about his role in the death of a mother who was protecting her cubs, adding: “I am really sad that our encounter cost her her life.”

The story of dealing with aggressive bears after the success of a rewilding project in the Italian Alps comes as hundreds of other brown bears are being shot across Europe – from Sweden to Romania.

“We have lost all grip on this issue,” says environmentalist Francesco Romito. “We need to protect bears for the future, but also understand the fears of the local community.”

The bear now in captivity, responsible for the first fatal attack in Italy in 150 years, has been named JJ4. She is the fourth daughter of Joze and Jurka, two bears who were captured in Slovenia and released into a national park near Trento along with eight others more than 20 years ago.

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

This EU-backed plan to restore the top predators to the food chain was hailed as a success, with at least 120 bears now living in the region. Inevitably, there have been close encounters with humans.

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

The bear, JJ4, was tranquilized (pictured) and is now in custody after being spared by the country’s Supreme Court. JJ4 was responsible for the first fatal beating in Italy in 150 years

Eurasian brown bears are large animals. They can be larger than a human, weigh up to 800 pounds, and can attack at 35 mph, with males traveling great distances. Although they are generally shy of humans and are primarily nocturnal, they can be aggressive if frightened – especially mothers with cubs.

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

Many houses in Caldes now have banners demanding “Justice for Andrea.” His father, Carlo, told me that people are angry about the rewilding plan and the failure to inform residents about attacks.

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

“We’ve been waiting for justice, but it seems like it’s never coming. We want accountability – someone going to jail. The decision to reintroduce bears has been a disaster.”

Residents of Caldes told me that a bear had wandered through a children’s playground the night before. A few days earlier, one woman said, a car had been badly damaged when a bear stood on it to take fruit from a tree. Alberto Perli, mayor of Andalo, a popular tourist town, said that even fixing garbage bins in concrete couldn’t stop the powerful animals from knocking them over in search of food. Authorities are now building underground bins.

Eurasian brown bears are large animals. They can be larger than a human, weigh up to 800 pounds and attack at 35 mph, with males covering great distances.

Research by the Trentino wildlife department shows that the reintroduction project was well supported at the start. But now 70 percent of the local population is not happy with the growing bear population.

Franca Ghirardini, 61, the mother of the fatally injured jogger, complained that local people were never consulted about rewilding.

The outcry over her son’s death has become so great that she and her husband have received a flood of hate mail and insults on social media, resulting in 21 complaints to the police.

A number of regional government employees have also quit their jobs because of the hostility the original decision to shoot JJ4 aroused among animal lovers.

The bear’s life was spared, along with that of another animal that attacked a hiker, after activists appealed to Italy’s highest court, where judges ruled that killing the bear would have been a “disproportionate” punishment.

Claudio Groff, head of Trento’s Large Carnivores Division, said JJ4 will likely be deported to Germany later this year. “Coexistence with bears means removing those that pose a danger to humans,” he said.

Marina Chini of Collettivo Scobi, which campaigns for animal rights and opposes the slaughter of JJ4, said the risk of being attacked by a bear was negligible compared to other dangers in the mountains. “Many, many more people are killed by cars,” she said.

Although brown bears are generally shy of humans and are primarily nocturnal, they can react aggressively if frightened – especially mothers with cubs

Alessandro de Guelmi, a retired veterinarian who captured 18 bears for research and public safety while overseeing captures in Trentino between 2014 and 2019, said a “fantastic” plan had been ruined after it was co-opted by politicians. “I never had a problem because bears are intelligent. If you know what you are doing, they will not harm you,” he said.

He explained that it is a normal reaction to scream when confronted by a bear, “but this scares him.” He told me about a time when he came across a sleeping bear. “I gently pulled on his cheek, like you would a cat or a child, and he opened his eyes at me. I thought he was going to go crazy, but as soon as he opened his eyes I knew it was okay. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. I felt like she was smiling at me.”

Still, he believes it’s better to kill wild animals than keep them behind bars. “Captivity is the most horrible thing you can do to a bear – they must be free or dead.”