The desire to collect interactions on digital social media has exceeded the limit of common sense in the mountains of the province of Sondrio. On the evening of Sunday 7 June, the streets of Oga, a hamlet of the municipality of Valdisotto located just over a thousand meters above sea level above Bormio in Lombardy, were in fact transformed into the scene of a close pursuit.
A motorist, having come across a specimen of brown bear wandering in the dark among the alleys and stone walls of the town centre, decided to chase it for several hundred meters with his car. The end? Filming the terrified animal’s escape with the cell phone camera and then launching the footage on social media, where the images immediately went viral.
The serious risk of unpredictable and violent reactions
The choice to transform an exceptional encounter into a car hunting trip represents an act of pure recklessness that undermines public safety and the well-being of wildlife. Hunting a large predator by projecting the vehicle’s dazzling headlights at it and pressing it with the roar of the engine generates a state of strong psychological stress in the wild.
The experts of the Stelvio National Park and the forestry carabinieri – who had already isolated footprints and traces in the neighboring area of Santa Lucia – strongly condemned the gesture. A frightened animal deprived of escape routes can react suddenly, attacking the passenger compartment or turning sharply towards any unaware passers-by, turning an amateur video into a tragedy. Even his own safety is at risk: even with just one misstep he could hurt himself.
Valtellina as a genetic transit corridor
The scientific community invites us to understand the nature of these sightings without giving in to panic or exhibitionism. The plantigrade filmed in Oga is in all likelihood a dispersing male, a young specimen emerging from spring hibernation that travels tens of kilometers in search of a female or new territories.
Unlike western Trentino, where the Adamello-Brenta population is sedentary, Alta Valtellina does not host resident nuclei, but acts as a fundamental transit corridor for bears coming from Switzerland or other sectors of the Alpine arc, just as happened way back in 2009 in nearby Cepina.
The golden rules for safe and temporary coexistence
To ensure that the passage of these splendid mammals remains a sporadic and danger-free event, land management requires maximum collaboration from the local population. It is essential to avoid any form of approach to take photographs or make videos. At the same time, it is a good idea to remove food present outside the home, such as organic waste bags or bowls with kibble for pets. Only by depriving the bear of easy resources and leaving it the space necessary to move away undisturbed will we prevent the predator from gaining confidence in humans, protecting its life and the safety of Alpine communities.
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