Romanian president signs law regulating bear population cull
Romania approves new framework for bear population control
Poinews.com – Romanian President Nicușor Dan has signed legislation allowing wider intervention to reduce the country’s brown bear population, following months of constitutional and parliamentary debate over how authorities should respond to rising encounters between bears and people.
The measure permits the preventive shooting of 859 brown bears during 2026. It also allows the hunting of 110 protected large wild animals as an intervention measure when they are considered a danger to human life. The law will take effect after publication in Romania’s official gazette.
Its approval comes as bear sightings in villages, towns and other inhabited areas have become increasingly familiar in parts of the country. Emergency services have received hundreds of calls related to bears entering built-up locations, while attacks on people have risen sharply in recent years, including fatal cases.
A law returned to parliament
Dan had initially challenged the draft before the Constitutional Court and later returned it to parliament in August, asking lawmakers to reconsider and clarify several elements. The court rejected his constitutional challenge.
Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies readopted the bill on 16 September without changing the version previously passed by the Senate. With the president’s signature now secured, the revised legislation has cleared its final major institutional hurdle.
Supporters have argued that the law gives local and national authorities a more practical legal basis for acting when bear activity becomes a safety concern. The initiative was introduced by the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, known as RMDSZ.
Senator Tánczos Barna, acting deputy prime minister and one of the bill’s initiators, said the alliance had sought nearly a year earlier to double preventive quotas for both 2026 and 2027. He linked that request to scientific work examining the country’s bear population.
Immediate action against dangerous bears does not replace broader population control measures.
The distinction is central to the debate. Intervention measures address individual animals deemed to pose an immediate threat, while preventive quotas are intended to manage population levels over a longer period. Backers of the law maintain that both approaches are needed if communities are to see a lasting reduction in risks and damage.
Europe’s largest brown bear population
Romania holds Europe’s largest brown bear population and has the greatest genetic diversity among bear populations on the continent. An earlier population-mapping survey estimated that Romania had between 10,600 and 12,700 brown bears.
That scale has placed Romania at the centre of a difficult policy question: how to protect a major wildlife population while responding to the increasingly frequent contact between bears and residents. The new law reflects a political conclusion that the present level of intervention has not been sufficient to address the problem in some areas.
Officials in Covasna County, part of the Szeklerland region, have emphasized the local impact. Prefect Ráduly István said the county is expected to remove 86 bears under this year’s allocation, but only 30 had been culled by last week.
He warned that the remaining time in 2026 was too short to complete the full quota. The lengthy legal process, he said, has left authorities facing the prospect of trying to implement a substantial annual target only after much of the year has passed.
In Covasna County alone, roughly 300 emergency calls involving bears wandering into built-up areas were registered during the first eight months of the year. Two bear attacks were also recorded over that period. Local officials say both the number of animals and the harm associated with their presence have increased significantly.
Implementation pressures remain
Signing the law does not automatically settle the practical questions surrounding its enforcement. Several officials have cautioned that reaching the 2026 preventive quota may no longer be realistic, since hundreds of animals would need to be removed in a limited period.
The challenge is especially apparent in counties with large bear populations, where local authorities must respond to emergency calls while also applying the rules governing preventive culls. The law creates a clearer route for action, but the timing of its adoption could restrict what can be achieved before the end of the year.
Parliamentary supporters pressed for the measure to be applied quickly during debate, arguing that delays have consequences for communities that repeatedly encounter bears near homes, roads and public spaces. The revised law is intended to give the authorities a firmer basis for decisions involving dangerous animals and wider population management.
Romania’s approach will continue to draw close attention because it sits at the intersection of public safety, wildlife protection and rural life. The country’s brown bears remain an important part of Europe’s natural heritage, yet the growing number of encounters has made the question of intervention increasingly urgent for residents and officials alike.
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