LEVEA: It was a shocking sight for the farmer — three of his sheep lying dead on the ground, signs of their mauling unmistakable. The large paw prints in the earth left no doubt they had been killed by a bear, a once rare but now increasingly frequent visitor in this part of northwestern Greece.
“It was a bear, a very big one, and they come often now. I wasn’t the only one, it struck elsewhere too,” said Anastasios Kasparidis, adding that another farmer had lost some chickens and pigs. He decided to move the rest of his small flock into a sheep pen near his house for protection.
“Because in the end I wouldn’t have any sheep,” Kasparidis said. “The bears would eat them all.”
Environmentalists have welcomed the rebound of bear and wolf populations in Greece thanks to the protected species designation that banned them being hunted. But some farmers and residents of rural areas say they now fear for their livelihoods and, in some cases, their safety. They are calling for greater protection in a phenomenon playing out elsewhere in Europe, with some arguing conservation has gone too far and pushing to roll back restrictions.
Bears, wolves and boars
