Over 82,000 people have signed the petition initiated by environmental advocacy NGO Agent Green, asking Parliament not to legalize trophy hunting.

The initiators, who aim to collect 100,000 signatures, want Parliament to drop the bill that would “allow the hunting of 500 bears annually for trophies”, and the national plan of action for the conservation of Romania’s brown bear population to become law.

The environmentalists blame former Environment Minister Tanczos Barna of “doing nothing” to protect either people or bears, pointing out that the UDMR senator initiated a bill “okaying the hunting of 500 bears every year for trophies, without seeking the consent of the Romanian Academy or other independent scientific opinion, in violation of the Berne Convention” and of the European legislation. Tanczos Barna is also accused of having blocked the 2018-approved national plan of action for the conservation of the brown bear population in Romania.

In the opinion of the petition initiators, the bill proposed by Tanczos Barna “would put Romania in trouble without actually solving the bear problem.”

The petitioners want aggressive bears, who unjustifiably attack people, to be taken to a sanctuary the state should set up.

According to the cited source, if this bill is adopted, “the European Commission will take Romania directly to the European Court of Justice”, considering that the bear is a strictly protected species. The European Commission has approved budgets for member states for the “prompt and fair compensation” of any farmer who incurs damage on their own property or in areas where they have a contract to practice agriculture, Agent Green mentions.

Also, according to the petition, Romania “has never measured its bear population using scientific methods that include DNA sampling”, and the counts conducted so far were only based on direct observations by representatives of hunting ranges.

Non-lethal bear-management measures include: electric fencing of beehives and livestock brood areas, animal carcass collection and disposal programs, bear-proof garbage storage facilities, regulating the carrying of pepper spray, and properly collecting the remains of animals killed by hunters.