The Forestry Service said Wednesday that Slovenia was home to between 500 and 700 brown bears, while their numbers increase by between 100 and 150 bears a year. The bear population is stable, the service wrote in a press release. The World Wildlife Fund challenged the estimate.
This data presents the basis for the culling of 106 bears, planned in 2007, while other causes would push the number of bears killed this year to 130.
Among the bears, some 20% younger than one year, a further 15% are between one and two years old and the remaining population is older. A dominant female bear on average mothers 1.82 cubs, the data also shows.
The data is based on long-term monitoring, carried out since 2003 by the service and its partners at 167 feeding posts. The counting is carried out three times a year, the service also wrote in the press release.
Although it says data from the feeding posts is objective, the service has set up a parallel method with DNA sampling based on a proposal from the European Commission.
The number of culled bears is determined by the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning. A total of 99 bears were culled last year.
The proposed number of culled animals sparked protests from an animal rights group, which believes that the number is too high.
The Association for the Liberation of Animals and Their Rights sent a letter of protest to Environment Minister Janez Podobnik in early February in which it pointed out that the method for ascertaining the number of brown bears could not yield accurate data.
The NGO's assessment was backed today by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which doubts the accuracy of the estimates. "Based on reliable local information, WWF believes the lower estimate is more realistic", the Geneva-based fund wrote on its website.
WWF also warned that the planned cull could have dramatic consequences for the species throughout Europe as the Slovenian brown bear population is shared by numerous countries in the region.
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