A BROWN bear whose every step on a mountain trek through three European countries has been tracked by satellite has beaten a hasty retreat from the sights of Bavarian hunters, only to run into a new ambush.

The bear has left a trail of disembowelled livestock, broken a beehive and chicken coops and created a diplomatic rift between Italy and Germany. But the anger of farmers has at least been matched by the outcry of naturalists, delighted that the animal has returned to its old stomping grounds.

The odyssey began three weeks ago when the young male left the Italian Alps near Trentino, where bears were reintroduced from neighbouring Slovenia ten years ago. The 100kg (220lb) animal covered up to 25km (16 miles) a day after crossing into Austria, looped back towards Switzerland and then set north for Germany, where it arrived in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area last weekend.

Naturalists assumed that the bear had gone in search of a mate, but it won few human friends while it killed sheep and chickens. Besieged by farmers and concerned that the bear might also attack people, Werner Schnappauf, the Bavarian Environment Minister, issued a “shoot to kill” order. A shepherd said that the bear had “ripped out sheeps’ innards, eating the heart and liver” . Another farmer demanded: “What if it did the same to a child or one of us?” Dr Schnappauf urged hunters to “put a shotgun in your knapsack and get up there quickly”. He said: “This is now a problem bear. It cannot be allowed to roam freely.”

But fresh tracks suggest that the bear has eluded German hunters and is back in Austria. He would be foolish to linger there, however. Last night the Austrian authorities declared open season on the interloper, licensing 150 hunters to capture him dead or alive.

“If the bear heads into a residential neighbourhood and if all other efforts to catch it fail, then the hunters have the right to shoot it,” Wilhelm Mayr, an official spokesman in Tyrol, said. “But it’s really a matter of last resort.”

The antics of the Bavarian and Austrian hunters have provoked outrage in Italy. Andrea Mustoni, the zoologist in charge of the bear project at the Adamello National Park in Trentino, was appalled at the reaction. “Surely at most they should knock him out,” he said. “There has not been a single case of bears attacking human beings in Europe for centuries.

He was not surprised that the bear had travelled so far. “Bears are great walkers — they can range for hundreds of kilometres.”

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