The tragedy of Italy’s dead bear – and the folly of rewilding

A butcher who has killed the most famous wild bear in Italy is now unable to leave his house for fear of being killed himself.

The tragedy calls into question, once again, the wisdom of the ever more fashionable quest by people in cities to rewild the countryside with dangerous animals such as bears and wolves.

There are no two ways about it: these animals wreak havoc.

If those in the city whose closest encounter with a wild animal is a feral pigeon, sewer rat, or urban fox, want such animals back in the countryside then they must accept that those who actually live in the countryside have the right to kill them, if necessary.

But as this tragedy shows, city people will lift heaven and earth to deny country people such a right.

The dead bear was called Amarena (Black Cherry). She was the best known and most prolific of the wild bears that inhabit the mountains of the Abruzzo not far from Rome.