The hunt for a brown bear that bit a man on the elbow has been put on hold, the Norwegian environment agency has announced, in a case that angered animal rights campaigners after officials shot the wrong bear.
The agency said on Wednesday it did not now plan to act on a bear-culling order it issued in late June in Jarfjord, near the border with Russia, after a female bear bit a man’s arm, leaving him needing stitches.
The order had caused outrage after nature inspectors who were tracking the female bear lost the trail and then killed a male bear by mistake.
On Tuesday, Oslo district court quashed a temporary injunction that animal rights groups had obtained to save the mother bear and her two cubs, which were also to be killed on the grounds they would starve without her.
However, the environment agency then said it would not cull the bears after all as they had moved south.
Siri Martinsen, a vet and activist with the animal rights group Noah, which had sought the injunction with Our Predators Association, said: “This decision is the first professionally sound decision the Norwegian environment agency has made in this scandalous case.”
She had described the court verdict on Tuesday as “just another example of Norway’s appalling predator policy.”
Brown bears in Norway are endangered but may be culled for a variety of reasons, including to keep people safe.
Campaigners argued that the female bear was no more dangerous than other bears and that the risk of similar incidents was minimal. They said several aggravating factors were at play during the attack, such as her feeling her cubs were threatened, protecting a nearby animal carcass, and the presence of a dog the victim had with him.
“The bear in this case was behaving like a bear,” the campaigners argued in court.
The environment agency said it had fulfilled all the legal requirements to order a cull and did not need to prove that the animal was more likely than other bears to attack humans. “With its behaviour, the bear has already shown that it poses a risk to human life and health,” it said.
The court ruled in favour of the agency and agreed with the portrayal of the bear as not being timid. It noted that the attack took place about 300 metres away from the victim’s home, in an area with hiking trails.
The agency said on Wednesday that the bear had not been seen on wildlife cameras in the area in the past week.
Hilde Singsaas, the agency’s director, said: “The risk of new encounters between humans and the female in question is now significantly lower than when we decided to cull on 26 June. We will therefore not decide on any new cull now.”
Europe’s appetite for killing big carnivores has increased in recent years as wolves eating farmers’ sheep and several bear attacks on humans have fuelled fury at rules to protect wildlife. Far-right parties across the continent have campaigned to weaken green rules in the face of threats from wild animals.
In the Norwegian case, campaigners said environmental authorities painted a misleading picture of the bear. The bite had been widely reported as an unprovoked attack on a hiker, but a police report to the environment agency, reproduced in the court’s ruling on Tuesday, showed the victim had two hunting dogs when he first encountered the animal. He took one of the dogs home and returned with the other to follow the tracks he had spotted.
Martinsen said: “The man who was injured was following the bear’s tracks on his own initiative with a hunting dog. That is exactly what you should not do with a bear and her cubs when they’re small.”
She said the environment agency had failed to properly inform the public of the nature of the attack. The agency declined to comment on its characterisation of the attack.
According to the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, bears in Scandinavia injure one person a year on average, and the “vast majority” of attacks happen while hunting.
Campaigners welcomed the environment agency’s latest decision but criticised it for leaving the door open to kill the bear if it returns.
Alette Sandvik, of Our Predators Association, said: “The suggestion that a new felling permit can be issued just because she is seen in the area is contrary to the terms of the law. This area is part of the natural habitat of the female, and it is not the case that females should be able to be shot just because you see them.”
