The mountain village of Caldes, surrounded by forests below the jagged peaks of the Alps, has been officially recognised as one of the most beautiful places in Italy.
Yet, today, many villagers are scared to go into those forests. One elderly woman told me she had abandoned hiking and photographing nature. Her neighbour pointed out the trails that he no longer strolls along every weekend.
Giuseppe Rizzi, 72, president of the village council, has stopped walking his dog to visit his allotment in the forest. And his wife Alba doesn’t feel safe going out after dark, saying: ‘I don’t remember ever being scared like this when I was growing up.’
The reason these villagers – many from generations of tough mountain folk who lived as hunters and shepherds – are so fearful is simple: a neighbour, while on a run last year, was mauled to death by a female bear.
The attack on Andrea Papi, 26, as he jogged in the Dolomites, shocked Italy, sparking a national debate over the wisdom of a policy to reintroduce brown bears here.
The clash pitted politicians against animal rights activists, conservationists against local people. Meanwhile, the bear, though spared from being put down by the country’s top court, is now trapped in captivity, with wildlife experts complaining about the cruelty of her ‘jail’ sentence.
The controversy recently reignited after another female bear was killed on orders of the region’s governor following an attack on a French tourist. In an unexpected twist, the victim, Vivien Triffaux, 43, then said he was ‘really sad’ for his role in the death of a mother protecting her cubs, adding: ‘I’m truly pained that our encounter cost her life.’
The saga over how to handle aggressive bears after the success of a ‘rewilding’ project in the Italian Alps comes at a time when hundreds of other brown bears across Europe – from Sweden to Romania – are being culled.
‘We have lost all our bearings on this issue,’ says environmentalist Francesco Romito. ‘We need to conserve bears for the future but also understand the fears of the local community.’
The bear now in captivity, which was responsible for Italy’s first fatal mauling for 150 years, has been named JJ4 – being the fourth daughter of Joze and Jurka, two bears caught in Slovenia and released with eight others into a national park near Trento more than two decades ago.
Their translocation was part of a project called Life Ursus, which began after bears in this region were on the brink of extinction.
This EU-backed scheme to restore the predators at the top of the food chain was deemed a success, with at least 120 bears now living in the region. Inevitably, there have been close encounters with people.
Eurasian brown bears are big beasts. They can be taller than a human, weigh up to 800 lb and charge at 35 mph, with males roaming vast distances. Though usually shy of people and largely nocturnal, they can react aggressively when frightened – especially mothers with cubs.
After Andrea Papi was killed by JJ4, it emerged that the bear had been involved in an attack four years earlier – mauling a man who was hiking with his father. There have been at least six other assaults over the past decade resulting in serious injuries.
Many houses in Caldes now display banners demanding ‘Justice for Andrea’. His father, Carlo, told me people are furious over the rewilding scheme and failure to inform residents about attacks.
‘I’m filled with anger,’ said the retired head waiter. ‘The authorities knew there was a dangerous bear out there but didn’t warn anyone.
‘We’ve been waiting for justice but it seems it will never come. We want accountability – someone to go to jail. The decision to reintroduce bears has been a disaster.’
Caldes residents told me that a bear had been seen strolling through a children’s playground the previous night. A few days earlier, said one woman, a car had been badly damaged by a bear standing on it to reach fruit from a tree. Alberto Perli, mayor of Andalo, a popular tourist town, said that even fixing rubbish bins in concrete failed to stop these powerful animals from tipping them over to rummage for food. The authorities are now building underground bins.
Surveys by Trentino’s wildlife department found the reintroduction project was well-supported when it began but now 70 per cent of locals dislike their booming bear population.
Franca Ghirardini, 61, mother of the fatally mauled jogger, complained that locals had never been consulted on rewilding.
Yet such has been the furore following her son’s death that she and her husband have suffered a repulsive barrage of hate mail and abuse on social media, resulting in 21 complaints to the police.
Some staff in the regional government have also quit their jobs due to the hostility aroused among animal lovers by the original decision to shoot JJ4.
The bear’s life was spared – along with another beast that attacked a hiker – after activists appealed to Italy’s highest court and judges ruled that putting it down would be a ‘disproportionate’ punishment.
Claudio Groff, who heads Trento’s Large Carnivores Division, said JJ4 was likely to be deported to Germany later this year. ‘Co-existing with bears means removing those that pose a danger to humans,’ he said.
Marina Chini, of Collettivo Scobi, which campaigns on animal rights and opposed the putting down of JJ4, says the risk of being mauled by a bear is negligible compared with other dangers in the mountains. ‘Many, many more people are killed by cars,’ she said.
Alessandro de Guelmi, a retired vet who trapped 18 bears for research and public safety while overseeing captures in Trentino between 2014 and 2019, said a ‘fantastic’ scheme had been ruined after it was taken over by politicians. ‘I’ve never had a problem because bears are intelligent. If you know what you are doing, they will not harm you,’ he said.
He explained that it is a normal reaction to scream when confronted by a bear, ‘but this makes it afraid’. He told me about once coming across a sleeping bear. ‘I pulled its cheek softly, like with a cat or child, and it opened its eyes at me. I thought it might go crazy but as soon as it opened its eyes I knew it was OK. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. It felt like she smiled at me.’
Yet he believes it is better to kill rogue animals than keep them behind bars. ‘Captivity is the most horrible thing you can do to a bear – they must be free or dead.’