Bear spotted in the Bernese Oberland
A game warden recently found bear tracks in the snow in the Gental valley near Innertkirchen BE.
This means the heraldic animal of the canton of Bern is once again roaming its native territory, as the canton announced via Twitter. Bears are fundamentally very shy, emphasises the Bernese Directorate of Economic Affairs in an information sheet. As a rule, bears avoid humans.
The canton recommends staying on marked hiking trails and avoiding dense berry thickets or remote mushroom-picking areas. Dogs should be kept on a lead. It is also advisable to make one's presence known by talking or making calm, unhurried noise.
Should an encounter with a bear occur nonetheless, the canton advises staying calm, standing still, and speaking in a normal voice. One should then withdraw slowly. Running away is likely to be futile, as bears can run at speeds of up to 50 km/h. The canton also advises against trying to snap a quick photo of a bear.
For the first time in 190 years, a bear was spotted in the Eriz in May 2017. This was followed by sightings in the Susten area, including in the tranquil Gental valley. This is a northern side valley of the Gadmertal. At the end of the valley lie the Engstlensee lake and the Engstlenalp.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
