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Watch: Mother bear and cub stroll through the Italian city
A popular bear was shot dead on the outskirts of a town in central Italy and a man claimed he opened fire out of fear.
The bear, named Amarena, was filmed earlier this week roaming the town of San Sebastiano Dei Marsi with her two cubs.
Local governor Marco Marsilio said no bear in the Abruzzo region has ever threatened residents.
However, a jogger was killed by a bear in the Alps earlier this year.
There was great dismay in Abruzzo that Amarena had been killed. The bear was well known in the area and was named after a variety of black cherry that she was particularly fond of.
The governor said on social media that the killing was incomprehensible and a “very serious act against the entire Abruzzo region that leaves pain and anger.”
Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto called it a “very serious incident” and said everything must be done to ensure their two boys were protected and remained free.
Amarena was one of about 60 endangered Martian bears living in Abruzzo National Park, native to central Italy.
Park rangers intervened quickly, they said, because the cubs were there but veterinarians could only confirm that the bear had died.
Although Amarena has caused damage to crops and livestock in the past, there is no justification for the attack, it said: “[Amarena] had never created any problems for man.
The man who killed the animal was identified and questioned by local police.
“I shot out of fear, but I didn’t want to kill. “I found her on my property and it was an impulsive, instinctive act,” he was quoted as saying by the Ansa news agency.
There was some concern locally that the video of Amarena and her two cubs that surfaced on social media on Tuesday had led to an influx of onlookers wanting to get a glimpse of the bears.
In the footage, people in San Sebastiano Dei Marsi watch from a distance as the mother walks through town, waiting for her young and then descending a few steps away from the small crowd.
One of her boys, named Juan Carrito, died in January after being hit by a car. He, too, was popular with locals, although in 2021 he broke into a bakery and ate a freshly baked batch of cookies.
The shock of the latest death is markedly different from events last April, when 26-year-old Andrea Papi was fatally attacked in the northeastern Trentino-Adige region.
The bear accused of killing him in the foothills of the Alps last spring was identified as JJ4 and was the result of a program to repopulate the area with bears from Slovenia.