Sept. 20, 2005 — The small sleepy Slovak village of Stare Hory is a rare place in the European Union where bears are regularly spotted pilfering fruit from gardens.

"About one month ago I was sitting in front of my house on a small bench when a bear came up to within 20 meters of me and sat down in my garden and ate something which I assume was ants," recalls villager Vladimir Rovny, 73.

"It looked around for around three-quarters of an hour, during which people gathered on the road in front of my house, then it left," he added.

Bears regularly patronize Rovny's garden. Several times a year, they arrive in his small garden at the side of a hill and help themselves to plums, cherries or gooseberries. The greedy creatures also like cracking open beehives and helping themselves to honey.

And so far the bears have never reacted badly or injured anyone.

Hunters and ecologists disagree constantly on the number of bears in the country, with figures ranging from between 400 and 1,300. Whatever the exact figure, there is wide agreement on the fact that the bear community is currently overpopulated.

"After the first world war, the number of bears in Slovakia fell considerably. At the start of the 1930s there were only 20 bears, a number which rose in 1932 thanks to the protection of brown bears," Emil Rakyta, author of several books on hunting, told AFP.

"This continuing protection is the reason for the significant rise in the number of bears over the last seven decades. If one takes into account their breeding patterns, you get a current number of 800 to 900," he added.

Rakyta owns a small cottage at Kyslinky, a place more remote than Stare Hory and set at the foot of the Polana Mountains, which are home to around 10 bears.

"The bears very often stroll past my house," he says.

"Bears are peaceful animals, but man has turned them into something to be feared," stressed Miroslav Saniga, a specialist on forest animals who lives in Stare Hory.

Over the last few years, the bears have started coming down into the village and visiting the gardens of the highlanders, where they frequently cause damage.

The reason is that there are too many bears in such a small area and they can't find enough food in the forest, explained Saniga.

They also have a bad habit of looking for leftovers such as yogurt, sweets, cooked meat and sweet drinks in rubbish bins in the village and in car parks along the roads, which are mostly frequented by tourists.

That can be dangerous. A bear that has been surprised and angered by the presence of tourists — who often don't know how to react in such a situation — can inflict serious injuries.

When a bear causes too much damage or poses a danger to people, hunters are authorized to kill it by the Ministry of Environment.

As well as these rare cases, each year the ministry gives around 60 permits to kill bears in the country. But as it is forbidden to kill a bear weighing more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds), the number of animals that can be hunted is quite limited. An adult male weighs around 250 kilograms (550 pounds).