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A Bit Too Wild for Bavarians, Bruno the Bear Wears Out His Welcome
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Many Austrians say their German neighbors are overreacting to Bruno's presence. Bears "do cause damage now and then, but then we just replace [the sheep] and nobody gets worked up," Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "If Europe has nothing else to worry about other than Bruno the bear, then it must be a happy place."
Unlike Austria and Italy, however, Germany has no programs in place to compensate farmers and was taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of a bear. That has led to a debate over who represents the bigger threat to whom: Bruno to Bavaria, or vice versa.
"Bavaria is not prepared to become bear country again right now," Fleischer said in a telephone interview. "Bruno is the first bear to come back to Bavaria, but there will be a second and a third one for sure."
That prospect doesn't sit well with some people in the region. Martin Wehrmeister, 66, a farmer and beekeeper in the Austrian village of Haeselgehr, a few miles south of the Bavarian border, spotted Bruno outside his house on the evening of May 16 when his German shepherd started barking.
He said the bear didn't seem overly frightened of people. Wehrmeister hopped in his car and illuminated the bear with its headlights before Bruno reluctantly turned away from the farmer's beehives and ambled back into the forest.
"I would not favor bears here in our region. The population density is much greater than it used to be," Wehrmeister said. "It would be best for the bear if it's captured soon. There's got to be a way, with all they have to find him -- helicopters and everything else."
Then again, when bears were wiped out in the 19th century from the Austrian region of Tyrol, it took hunters six years to track down the last animal and shoot it, said Joern Ehlers, a World Wildlife Fund official who has spent the last three weeks in Bavaria chasing Bruno. "I think we could be in for a whole summer of this," he said.
Special correspondent Shannon Smiley contributed to this report.
