Conservation organisations have urged police to investigate the shooting of a bear cub in the Florina regional unit of northern Greece.
A local farmer spotted the body of the young animal near Xino Nero and informed the forestry service. It had been shot in the abdomen and chest. The cub was only a few months old and had not been separated from its mother. Fresh traces of an adult animal, likely the cub’s mother, were found nearby.
Environmental organizations Arktouros and Kallisto described the killing as another serious crime against biodiversity, noting that a year ago three more bears were killed in the same area by persons unknown.
The two organizations are participants in an EU-funded project “LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors,” an international collaboration between the Netherlands, Italy and Greece that aims to conserve brown bear populations in Central Italy and Greece, by maintaining and ensuring important corridors of movement and connections between bear populations and the creation of “smart communities of coexistence” of humans and bears.
The brown bear is protected under Greek and EU legislation.
Source : Ekathimerini