A court order to have euthanize a bear that killed a jogger in the Italian Alps was temporarily suspended, saving the bear’s life for the time being.
Early in April, Andrea Papi passed away in an attack that shocked many Italians in the northeastern region of Trentino-Alto Adige.
After DNA evidence implicated the 17-year-old brown bear, known as JJ4, park rangers eventually caught her.
The authorities have now postponed their order to kill her until June 27.
The bear injured a father and son while they were hiking on Mount Peller in 2020, according to the local provincial government, who claims the bear should be killed because she has a history of attacking people.
However, the appeal against the destruction made by environmental groups, who maintain that the bear is innocent, was partially upheld by the Trento Administrative Court on Friday.
It has requested more information from all parties involved, including more information on a plan by those opposed to the killing to send JJ4 and another bear, known as MJ5, to a bear reserve either in Italy or abroad.
MJ5, an 18-year-old male bear that has not yet been apprehended, killed a man in March while he was out walking his dog.
Animal rights advocacy group LAV expressed its appreciation for the news in a statement shared on social media, claiming that it would fund their “concrete and real” rehousing plans.
JJ4’s execution might be postponed further because a hearing regarding this plan has been scheduled for December 14.
Fear and rage spread throughout the area after Andrea Papi was fatally attacked while jogging above the town of Caldes in the Brenta Dolomites on the slopes of Mt. Peller. He is the first Italian known to have died in the last few years at the hands of a bear.
After an intensive two-week hunt in which forest rangers with dogs tracked her footprints in the snow in the woodland in the Meledrio valley, JJ4 was captured with her three cubs in a tube-style bear trap filled with fruit.
The cubs were all weaned and already capable of living without their mother.
In Italy, bears are a protected species, and since they were reintroduced to the area two decades ago, their population has been growing recently.
JJ4’s biological parents had been transported from Slovenia to northern Italy as part of the “Life Ursus” European conservation initiative.
The governor of Trentino, Maurizio Fugatti, stated last month that the province currently had about 70 “excess” bears and that the ideal number of wild bears was around 50.
