Brown Bear in Transylvania: Ethical Big Game Hunting Explained

Romania hosts the largest brown bear population in Europe outside Russia — an estimated 6,000–7,000 animals. This population has remained stable or grown for two decades, despite significant human-bear conflict, habitat pressure and poaching. The primary management tool responsible for this stability is quota-based trophy hunting.

This is not a comfortable argument to make in 2026. But the data is not comfortable — it is simply true.

How the quota system works

Each year, wildlife biologists from the Romanian National Agency for Environmental Protection conduct population surveys across the hunting concessions. Based on estimated population, age structure and human conflict indices, a sustainable offtake quota is calculated — typically 1–3% of the estimated population per concession.

Concession holders (hunting associations or private lease holders) must demonstrate compliance with quota, species age-selectivity, and reporting requirements to retain their licence. Trophy hunting provides the economic incentive for concession holders to maintain habitat and manage the population responsibly.

The alternative — protection without revenue — has been tried in the EU's strictly protected areas. In those areas, poaching rates are higher and human-bear conflict more acute, because there is no economic incentive for local communities to tolerate bears.

The moral question

Every hunter who takes a trophy bear from a managed population must sit with the weight of that decision. I take this seriously. I have guided 14 bear hunts in 22 years and turned away hunters whose motivations I found incompatible with ethical practice.

An ethical bear hunt is one where: the animal is selected by biologists for age and status; the shot is taken at a distance and angle that ensures a clean kill; the hunter demonstrates competence before the hunt; and the meat and hide are used.

In those conditions, I am proud of the work we do. The bears in the Carpathians are thriving. That is not despite hunting. It is, in part, because of it.