Financiarul

A bear-protection project financed by European funds for the Romanian central counties of Harghita, Covasna and Vrancea was launched on Thursday in Miercurea Ciuc, in the presence of county officials and specialists.

The LIFEURSUS project, sponsored by the European Commission under the Life + Programme, to which public money is added, will be carried out over three years in partnership with the Vrancea County’s Association for Biodiversity Conservation and the Harghita County’s Association for the Conservation of Nature Assets.

Director of the Harghita Environmental Agency Gabriela Netedu said the project aims to prevent and reduce conflicts between bears and locals, preserve the current conservation state of the 15 Natura 2000 sites located in the area as well as to avoid a bear population decrease caused by poaching and cub mortality.

The project will also aim to set up a database comprising the bear populations of the three countries; monitor the bears’ dens so as to avoid the areas where the bears winter when forestry licences are warded, and to create maps of the ecological corridors linking the bears’ habitats, which, if destroyed, may lead to a decline in the bear population.

These maps are said to be checked when large infrastructure projects are carried out in order to avoid the unwanted destruction of the corridors linking the areas where bears live. The specialists and administrators of game parks having attended the launching ceremony agree that the main reason for the aggressive human encroachment on the bears’ habitat is the damage incurred by the animals.

The bear population of Harghita is put at 1,135 by the latest estimates, larger than the optimal number supported by the local natural conditions and that is why, over the past years, these animals have started to get even closer to human settlements, looking for food. Even though foresters periodically provide them food, the number of instances with bears damaging crops or households is increasing.

Specialists have repeatedly warned that the bears have started to become increasingly disturbed by the presence of humans in their realm, from tourists using ATVs up to the mushrooms’ pickers, this being the reason for deserting their natural habitat.