By IPS Correspondents
BUCHAREST, Jan 12 2004 (IPS)

When communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was shot dead Christmas Day in 1989, it could have been good news for the bears – he had shot hundreds of them. And now the government finds so many bears around that hunters are being asked to shoot them again.

The government announced last week that it would allow hunters to shoot 300 of Romania’s estimated 5,300 bears this year.

Local environmentalists oppose the move. They say the bear population has been overestimated.

"A bear usually covers between 15 to 20 kilometres in a single night and could be counted up to three times by different forest wardens," says Laszlo Szabo- Szeley, president of the environmental group Aves.

Szeley believes that the brown bear population of Romania has fallen 60 percent over the last three to four years. The bears are being hunted down already, he says. "It’s probably partial or complete extinction of this species in the next decade."

Aves has launched a campaign to save the Carpathian brown bear. But environmentalists face strong opposition from officials.

Hunting was the privilege of the elite in communist times, and the situation is not very different now. Prime Minister Adrian Nastase is also president of a hunters’ association. Agriculture minister Ilie Sarbu who handles environmental matters shot himself in the thigh in a hunting accident Dec. 27.

Romania is drawing hunters from all around. Over recent years an increasing number have come from Germany, Spain, Italy and Austria in expensive group tours to hunt stags, brown bears and wolves. Romania is one of the last European countries with plenty of what hunters call game.

The country earned more than six million dollars from hunting expeditions last year, officials say. Foreign hunters will spend thousands of dollars to shoot a bear.

"We expect at least the same earnings in 2004 because Romania is an interesting hunting place for those who want to bag something really exotic," says Arpad Sarkanz who owns a company providing hunting services.

The agriculture ministry has announced a quota of shooting 370 wolves this year in a population estimated between 2,000 and 3,500. The quota provides for shooting of 4,800 wild boars, 6,000 foxes, 12,800 rabbits and 8,100 pheasants.

Wild life is threatened also by rapid development, environmentalists say. The development is being spurred by the prospect of joining the European Union (EU) in 2007.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned in a report last year that development is a serious threat to the Carphatian mountains that run from Austria through Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.

The bulk of this area, as much as 39,000 square miles, is in Romania. The vast, virgin forests of Transylvania in this region are among Europe’s last pristine ecosystems.

Rapid spread of highways and modern agriculture will lead to "land degradation and loss of biodersity", WWF said. Highways will fragment habitats, and EU farm policy encourages overproduction, large-scale mechanised farming and use of chemical fertilizers, it warned.

"Most of the beast population is not threatened yet," ecology expert Andrei Blumer told IPS. "But it could be in 10 years because of development. Romania’s goal has to be to manage the situation now."

Blumer and other environmentalists fear that the Carpathians will go the way of Western Europe where Alpine areas have been overdeveloped. Many species have vanished.

"People here should understand that nature, including the country’s forests and wild animals, is their most precious asset, and they have to protect it," Blumer said.

Excerpt: