Let sleeping bears lie, says EC

Killing bears while they’re sitting ducks is like shooting fish in a barrel. Hunters in Russia, according to MEP Fiona Hall, “use dogs to dig and rouse bears from hibernation in their den and then kill them.”

The cubs are then left to die or sold to zoos and circuses, she says, in a memo asking for the European Commission’s position.

Environment commissioner Janez Potočnik replied this week that the commission was “aware of the practice to hunt brown bear in the den during hibernation.”

And his verdict?

“This practice as such does not seem be in line with a sustainable use of this species.”

Does not ‘seem’ to be a sustainable ‘use’ of the bear?

That’s one way of putting it, Janez…