The female bear did not cause damage to the nearby property, nor did it ever attack domestic animals, even though it lived in the village of Donja Ržanica for ten years, said Zorica Ralević, a resident of Berana, who owns a house in that village, near which the murdered bear lived, reports PR Center .
The news that a bear that "visited" an urban area with a cub at the end of February was brutally killed, disturbed the public in Montenegro and the region, according to the PR Center.
In her statement to the PR Center, Ralević said that she lives in the city, but occasionally works on the property in the village of Donja Ržanica.
"Not far from my house, a bear was constantly present. Every year we would hear it when we came to work or dig potatoes or clean the house. That bear was harmless. It never attacked anyone. The horses here belonged to my brother-in-law, "They stayed at night, and tied the cattle during the day. She even ran away from us, so there was no need to hide from her," said Zorica.
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The first year when they noticed her, Zorica said, they turned to the Association of Hunters and asked for an opinion on what to do and how to deal with her, stating that they advised them that if she doesn't do any damage and doesn't attack anyone, there is no need to move her to some national park.
"That's how we had to free ourselves, because I have to come here to work. She never did any damage to our property," said Zorica.
She said that they had plums and apples in the garden, and that the bear never broke anything or did any damage.
"In the last ten years, we have heard her constantly. She was running away from us, not us from her. I didn't even hear that she harmed anyone else," said Zorica.
When asked why she came from the village to the city, Ralević said that she assumed that the hunters were hunting to hunt legal game, stating that she could only assume why they did it.
"When I found out that she was killed, I cried. If a match is found, I would accept to raise it until it grows up," said Zorica.
The representative of the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds (CZIP), Aleksandar Perović, assessed that the situation in hunting is not what it wants to be, and that this organization, together with a group of organizations, submitted an initiative for the urgent introduction of a moratorium on hunting.
"All these cases of shooting of strictly protected species, both hunting and non-hunting, are just an indication that something has to change urgently. Until now, we had an organization that was blinded by some of its responsibilities, they choose themselves, control themselves, I daresay it can be said that some legal solutions are written as they see fit, and the consequence of all this is the situation on the ground as we experience it today," said Perović.
He said that there is an urgent need to carry out an institutional and legal audit when it comes to hunting.
"Monitoring must be carried out. We must be aware that for the last 15 years no game monitoring has been carried out within hunting territories, and sustainable legal solutions must also be written, i.e. legal solutions that can be applied in the field," he pointed out. Perovic.
According to him, it is not enough for Montenegro to sign European laws, stating that it is difficult to fulfill most of these norms, "we have to adapt it to what is possible to do in Montenegro".
"The suspects for killing the bear are in custody. We are a serious organization, and we will wait for the competent institutions to finish the procedure, and after that we will make statements. What we can say at this moment is that the state institutions have started to do their work, the way it should be done," said Perović.
He reminded that this is not the first case of brown bear poaching.
"A few years ago, we had three bears shot, so the institutions did not react in this way. He is glad that the police and the prosecutor's office are doing their job. "According to the Criminal Code of Montenegro, for the murder of a strictly protected species, a legal penalty of six months to five years is prescribed," said Perović.
In Europe, the bear is a protected species that is threatened with extinction. Because of this, international documents were adopted that protect them, and Montenegro is also a signatory.
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