Slovenia's Brown Bears as Scapegoats: Hunting Policy in Decline

An administrative court has now halted the 206 culls planned for this year.

Since then, Slovenia has officially been wrestling with the «proper management of brown bears» — but unofficially, the debate centres above all on how much recreational hunting can still be politically sold as a conservation measure.

The starting point of the current conflict is the ruling by the administrative court, which has suspended the culling order until the end of 2026. The legal challenge was brought by the environmental organisation Alpe Adria Green. It argues that the official population estimate is based on genetic monitoring that tends to overstate the number of animals. Referring to approximately 954 bears is not scientifically sound, particularly given that the planned 206 culls would affect up to 22 percent of the population.

Rather than addressing this criticism and improving monitoring methods, public opinion is now being steered towards the impression of a population «spiralling out of control». The pattern is familiar: first, wild animals are celebrated as a success story of wildlife management, then the same animals are reframed as a public safety threat in order to push through culling plans.

Feeding stations, waste, settlements: the problem is people, not bears

Slovenia is regularly cited in specialist circles as an example of “successful bear management.” However, a study on the cross-border brown bear population in Croatia and Slovenia reveals how strongly this management is shaped by political and hunting interests.

The practice of deliberately feeding bears is part of the problem. What is officially described as an attempt to keep animals away from villages in practice leads to bears becoming accustomed to easily accessible food, reproducing more rapidly, and the population being artificially inflated.

At the same time, humans are encroaching ever deeper into natural habitats, fragmenting forests with roads and settling in areas where wildlife was once largely undisturbed. In many villages, open waste containers, compost heaps, and unsecured chicken coops are commonplace — an open invitation to any omnivore. When bears then appear in residential areas, the narrative presented is that the animal has “lost its fear” of humans and suddenly become dangerous.

In reality, bears are simply following the trail of our own negligence.

Fear campaign instead of sober risk analysis

In Rakitna, a village not far from Ljubljana, reports indicate a growing number of bear sightings in residential areas, with bears overturning waste containers in search of food.

A professor of sociology, appearing as the lead signatory of a petition, states that the animals have “lost their fear of humans.” The petition calls on the government to follow the recommendations of hunting-affiliated experts and enforce an annual cull of 206 bears. More than 4’8000 people have already signed.

In the media clamour, it is largely overlooked that environmental organisations point out that fatal attacks are extremely rare.

The actual danger is thus being systematically exaggerated, while the statistical reality is being downplayed. Those who traffic in fear achieve political results. The responsible approach, by contrast, would be to work with figures, context, and facts.

The EU widens the hunting window: from protected status to cull quota

Slovenia is not alone in its bear conflict. In Slovakia, the government decided in spring to shoot up to 350 brown bears, officially to “ensure public safety.” Of approximately 1’8300 animals in the country, this would mean more than a quarter being killed.

Nature conservation organizations accuse Bratislava of directly violating the EU Habitats Directive, which lists brown bears as a strictly protected species. The European Commission is examining the legality of the mass killing.

The same script repeats itself throughout the Alpine and Carpathian regions:

1. Predators are reintroduced or protected with EU funding.
2. Rising populations are politically marketed as a success.
3. As soon as conflicts over land use increase, hunting associations and the agricultural lobby move in to demand generous culling quotas.

A conservation story becomes a shooting story.

Switzerland watches on and builds toward the next conflict

Switzerland is familiar with the issue primarily from a distance. In 2024, SRF reported on the first bear to be caught on a camera trap that year, and promptly issued a kind of code of conduct for encounters with the «returnee.»

At the same time, a television report pointed out that the release of Slovenian bears in the Italian Trentino region would indirectly lead to bears migrating into Switzerland.

The message that stays with many viewers is this: the bear is less a fascinating wild animal than a potential risk that is best kept «under control.» Anyone who enters the debate on these terms quickly ends up calling for culling at the first sign of conflict with livestock or agriculture.

Instead of learning from Slovenia's mistakes, the same discourse is being prepared: first fascination, then the problem label, and finally bullets.

Recreational hunting as a false solution: those who shoot need to think less

From an animal welfare perspective, blanket culling plans are the most convenient and simultaneously the worst instrument for managing large predators. They suggest a capacity for action without addressing the underlying causes: inadequate waste management, absent herd protection, the tourist exploitation of bear habitats without public education, politically sanctioned feeding practices, and wildlife law that systematically favors hunting interests.

Slovenian bear policy illustrates exemplarily how far «management» has become a code word for hunting exploitation. When high quotas are approved year after year, this amounts to a political gift to a well-organized hunting lobby. The security discourse then serves primarily as moral absolution for a hobby with a fatal outcome for the animals.

At the same time, the debate ignores the fact that culling can alter the behaviour of the population. If primarily shy, cautious animals are removed, the more curious and conflict-prone individuals tend to remain. In the long term, culling can thus actually contribute to an increase in conflicts.

What genuine coexistence would look like

A sincere coexistence policy with brown bears would look fundamentally different in Slovenia, and across the Alps as a whole. At a minimum, it would place the following points at its centre:

• no feeding, neither officially nor «informally» via hunting installations
• consistent securing of waste, compost and livestock in known bear territories
• transparent, independent population estimates with access to raw data for the scientific community
• generous, unbureaucratic compensation for demonstrable damage
• mandatory training for municipalities, tourism operators and the agricultural sector on how to handle encounters with bears
• a clear primacy of non-lethal measures, with strictly defined exceptions for genuinely individual problem bears

There is no reasonable justification for Slovenia to weaken one of Europe’s most stable bear populations through mass killing, simply to appease a politically manufactured fear in the short term.

The bear is not the problem

Slovenia is not primarily grappling with the correct approach to brown bears. The country is grappling with how to handle its own political interests, a powerful hunting lobby, and the question of what value wildlife may be permitted to hold beyond trophies, meat and headlines.

As long as culling is regarded as the primary management instrument, the bear becomes a scapegoat for a political establishment unwilling to acknowledge its own failures in dealing with nature and spatial planning.

Whoever genuinely wants coexistence does not protect the freedom to shoot, but rather a society’s capacity to live alongside a large wild animal with respect, objectivity and without scaremongering.