Bruno’s goodbye

Bruno the bear was killed yesterday. 

See http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2068219,00.html

He was a brown bear, the first to re-enter Germany in over 170 years. But he was marauding, killing animals for sport as well as food, and was becoming too comfortable with people and civilization. So they hunted him wiht tranquilizers and scientists. At a cost of probably more than $150k. Finally they gave up, even the crack team of Finnish bear hunters.

Over the weekend, the government gave permission to shoot him. Promptly the next day he was killed.

It makes me wonder how so many experts can spend so much time and waste so much money being ineffective. How easy would it have been to hire real hunters but require them to use the tranquilizer darts instead of bullets? Very easy.

At the same time, it’s also not as big a deal as some people are making it out to be. Canadians and Americans shoot problem bears all the time. You have to, when they come too close to people and endanger them. And you train people (and create laws) to stay away from them and NOT FEED THEM.

Germany will learn, as more bears return.