Who is afraid of the bear?

Since more than 170 years he is the first wild brown bear living in Germany. When he crossed the borders of Northern Italy and Austria and arrived in Bavaria some weeks ago, he first was welcomed. People gave names to him: "JJ1" for example, or "Bruno" (it is him on the first picture; on the second one you see an anonymous colleague). He was the media-hype before the World-Cup had started. Then people saw the ugly truth: the bear is a robber and a killer! He killed sheep, rabbits and chicken and attacked a stock of bees. The farmers got angry.

Who is afraid of the bear? Of course any (non-armed) human being is a helpless victim for an aggressive bear in the case of a showdown. And so the Bavarian minister for environment decided that the bear, our Bruno, must be shot. Protectors of the environment protested and try to catch him and bring him to a national parc. The whole case shows us about man´s attitude towards nature in our times: as long as it is harmless, compatible with civilization, we like it, touch it, put in the zoo for watching it. As soon as it gets dangerous, incalculable and out of control we try to regain power and kill the alien. We are so many human beings on earth today and we have taken almost all the space for ourselves. Where should the wild animals refuge to? We are doing the same with our own nature: we suppress the unknown and prefer to live in a golden cage.

Bruno must have get aware of his accusation - soon after he returned to Austria. And the new strategy of his hunters is to search for him with the help of polar dogs from Finland. But luckily for Bruno, it is summer and these Scandinavian dogs do not like the warmth of middle Europe. They are simply not in their best condition - and Bruno is still somewhere in the forests of Bavaria or Austria ...