Following the fatal attack on runner Andrea Papi last week, Perrin JJ4 has been sentenced to death by Trento County Council. In the area where the runner was killed, traps were set to catch the animal and dogs were posted to track it down. This is not an easy task: JJ4 has a GPS collar, but the GPS coverage in the area is very poor.

Animal protection organization Lega Anti Vivisezione filed summary action earlier this week against an order to kill the bear. The court in Trento agreed with the animal protectors: until the May 11 hearing, no bear may be shot.

Last weekend, the runner Papi was found dead in the woods of the northern Italian province. There were bear bite marks on his body. DNA testing revealed that the JJ4 bear is 17 years old. The bear had already attacked two of the contestants a month earlier, but they escaped unharmed.

By the same order, the county government ordered the killing of three “controversial bears”. One of them is the MJ5, the older brother of the JJ4. He was responsible for the attack on the amusement park in March this year. The authorities also believe that the total number of copies should be reduced to fifty. Currently, about a hundred brown bears live in Trentino.

The brown bear was nearly extinct in Trentino at the beginning of this century. The relocation of ten bears from Slovenia in 1999 marked the beginning of the reinstatement of the brown bear in northern Italy. The population has grown strongly in the last 25 years. Animals occupy the largest area in northern Italy.

Their fenced-in habitat is getting too small and bear encounters are more likely. In recent years, the number of accidents involving brown bears has increased sharply. This year alone, four people have been attacked by a bear in Trentino, one of them fatally.