The Editor’s Note: Romania’s bear controversy

If you’re a regular encased in Alaska’s outdoors lifestyle, you’re going to be interested in all things bears, Last Frontier-related or not. So when I stumbled onto a story about a controversial bear death in Romania, I was as intrigued about the subject matter as I was the location.

In October 2016, I spent about 10 days in Southeastern Europe’s Romania, a place I knew very little about save for what I’d read in guidebooks to prepare for the trip. But on our first day, my buddy and I enjoyed an outdoor beer at a pub in the capital city of Bucharest. Our Romanian draft was named Ursus and the glass, of course, featured a regal bruin logo. I’d later find out that Drinking an Ursus-brand beer in the Romanian capital Romania, probably known of Bucharest tipped the more for champion gymnasts, the mythical origins of Count editor to how bears are a big part of the country’s identity during a trip there. Dracula and being a former (CHRIS COCOLES) Iron Curtain republic that gained independence when the Soviet Union fell apart starting in the late 1980s, is the brown bear capital of the European Union. The ursine population is the EU’s highest (an estimated 6,000 to 7,000, per The New York Times). So when a beloved bear – with a name and everything – is shot by a foreign royal family member under mysterious circumstances, it’s bound to create headlines.

According to the same Times piece, Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein, of the tiny principality in Central Europe, essentially was granted a depredation permit to kill a female bear said to have been causing problems for farmers in the Carpathian Mountains.

Instead, the prince shot and killed a 17-year-old brown bear named Arthur, believed to be the largest such living animal in the country and the European Union. The prince’s actions have met the expected outrage and could eventually be deemed anything from inhumane to poaching (trophy hunting has been banned in Romania since 2016).

We all know that bears are an integral part of the Alaskan culture, as is hunting them for conservation and even for sport. But imagine the news cycle if an American politician made a similar mistake as the member of Liechtenstein’s royal family. The media, regardless of political views, would be in a frenzy covering the story. So I know I’ll keep following this event to see where it leads. Royal family members embroiled in a scandal like this one can’t fly under the radar.

Romania and its people really endeared themselves to me when I visited. I never expected the nation to be a major wine producer. Vlad the Impaler, Bram Stoker’s inspiration for his fabled Count Dracula, had very little connection to Transylvania’s Bran Castle (aka, what outsiders call “Dracula’s Castle”). And, from the simple act of ordering a local beer, I found out that, like Alaska, the bear is a key symbol of Romania’s identity. -Chris Cocoles