The Brown Bear Intervention Team of the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic (SNC SR Intervention Team) points out that the false information regarding the occurrence of an injured bear in the vicinity of the municipality of Ihráč, Žiar nad Hronom district, is spreading on social media. In cooperation with the municipality of Ihráč, we urge the public not to spread panic and feed the fear of bears based on the unverified information.

The false information disseminated on social networks stated the following: “There is a 150–190 kg bear beaten to death in the brook under the Ihráč – píla lake. The second bear weighing around 300–320 kg escaped. So be careful around this area.” In 24 hours, this scaremongering message was shared 481 times from the author’s profile alone.

Having checked the situation with the assistance of a mayor, a forester and the SNC SR Intervention Team, Ihráč municipal authorities found this report to be false and marked it as such on the municipal profile: “We would like to inform the citizens that the message, which is being spread on social networks, is causing unnecessary panic…. We do not mean to tell the people not to be careful; we merely want to point out that such scaremongering and scaring of visitors of the local recreational facility and causing panic in the community is unnecessary. There is no reason for such messages to be spread!”

On 11 May, an injured bear was shot dead in the Ihráč hunting ground by the SNC SR Intervention Team. The bear was shot dead because of serious injuries sustained probably as a result of a collision with a car. However, there is no indication that there was another injured bear in the area. At the same time, there were no reports of any brown bear specimen visiting the built-up area of the municipality of Ihráč for the period of the last three years made to the SNC SR Intervention Team and, similarly, there were no reports of damages caused by bears in this area. However, as the municipality is part of the Kremnické vrchy orthographic unit, where brown bears naturally occur, caution is obviously recommended.

All such false reports put an unnecessary burden on the already overstretched SNC SR Intervention Team, which has to verify each of them and organise an emergency trip to the reported location. In this way, resources and time are wasted that could have been used for situations that actually do require the team to intervene. Especially during the night hours, irresponsible citizens, often under the influence of alcohol, overload the phone lines of the SNC SR Intervention Team with false messages or with misleading information. Such unethical behaviour means they prevent the team from helping someone else, who might urgently need their assistance at that moment. The SNC SR Intervention Team will cooperate more closely with the Slovak Police Force to investigate such cases.

Detailed information about the activities of the SNC SR Intervention Team, as well as recommendations on how to evaluate and act in the case of a bear encounter, are available on the SNC SR Brown Bear Intervention Team’s website https://zasahovytim.sopsr.sk/ or at https://www.sopsr.sk/medved.

This press release was prepared by the Department of Communication and Promotion of the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic.