Tourists cancel Dolomites trips in protest over bear killing

PROTESTS over the “barbaric” killing of a brown bear that attacked a hiker have led to tourists cancelling their holidays to Italy’s Dolomites.

Animal rights activists called for a boycott of the north Italian province of Trento yesterday in protest after forest rangers put down a bear that attacked a man walking his dog last month.

“We have heard of about 30 cancellations of houses and hotels affecting some 100 tourists who have decided not to pass their holidays in Trentino after the barbaric killing of the bear,” said the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment. “Italian, Russian and French tourists have renounced bookings.”

The group called for a boycott after forest rangers, on the written orders of Ugo Rossi, the Trento provincial government president, tracked down and killed the bear on Sunday.

Angelo Metlicovec, 70, was wounded when he came across the female bear, code-named KJ2, and its cubs in a wood near the Lamar Lakes on July 22. The bear ripped a chunk from his arm and attempted to tear his throat. Mr Metlicovec said he only survived because his dog barked at the bear and distracted it while he jumped into a gully.

Mr Rossi was unrepentant about the decision to kill the bear. “That bear was very dangerous,” he said. “She attacked a day tripper two years ago. Better this way than having a child wounded.”

Mr Metlicovec said he was “stupefied” by the killing of the animal, saying, “perhaps they should just have taken her away”.