Two environmental NGOs have accused a Liechtenstein prince of illegally shooting Romania’s largest bear in a trophy hunt. In a joint statement published last week Romania’s Agent Green and Austrian group VGT accused Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein of killing a 17-year-old brown bear in a protected nature reserve whilst on a trophy hunt in Romania in March this year.
1. False pretences
Trophy hunting is illegal in Romania and under the EU habitats directive, brown bears are protected from deliberate hunting, however derogations can be granted under special circumstances, for example if the animal is aggressive and endangering the public or other wildlife. Both NGOs claim that the prince came to Romania from Austria, where he lives, under the false pretence of shooting a female bear, for which the Romanian government had issued a special hunting derogation because she had been disturbing locals in a village in a nature-protection site in the Carpathian mountains. However, the bear the prince actually shot was a male, nicknamed Arthur, that had been under observation by an Agent Green ranger and that according to the NGOs had always kept away from the villagers.
In his statement Agent Green President Gabriel Paun said, “It is clear that the prince did not come to solve the problem of the locals, but to kill the bear and take home the biggest trophy to hang it on the wall. We are dealing with a game of poaching, since they shot the wrong bear.” Meanwhile Romanian Prime Minister Florin Cîțu is seemingly unconcerned, saying, “It looks like it’s not the biggest bear” in an interview with national media and noting that not all the information circulating in public was correct and there would be an investigation into it.
2. Trophy hunting
It is understood that the prince was in Romania trophy hunting, and the Associated Press reported it had seen documentation showing that the prince paid the equivalent of €7,000 for his four-day hunting permit. In their joint statement, the NGO’s said, “Romania has consistently violated Community legislation in this area since joining the EU by setting harvest and derogation quotas without ever implementing coexistence and co-adaptation measures.”
It is not known for sure whether Arthur really was the biggest bear living in Romania or in the EU, however Ann-Kathrin Freude from VGT said, “We can’t really measure the heights of all the bears, but the indication we have is the trophy score. You can have 600 points for the best bears you could possibly collect, and he has 592.8 points. It is the highest number ever recorded in trophy hunting, so it might very well be the biggest bear.” She added, “It’s a great problem that rich people actually all over the world still do trophy hunting as a social activity.”
The prince has not made any public announcements relating to the hunting trip, however according to Swiss newspaper Blick he said, “Personally, I do not want to get involved in the discussion in any way.” The European Commission in Brussels is now looking into the case and according to Politico, Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius told MEPs in the European Parliament’s environment committee on Monday “My services are now looking into the details of this case, and are following it very closely”, saying, “I trust the Romanian authorities investigate this incident in very close details.”
