Snapshot. Bear population controlled by law

The attack earlier this month in the Bucegi Mountains on a young tourist has brought the bear population in Romania back into the spotlight. There has also been an increase in the visibility of the fears expressed by people in local communities near bear habitats, as well as by animal protection organizations. From the data monitored by the media intelligence platform NewsVibe, it is quite clear that the aforementioned attack was a catalyst for public debate about the situation of the bear population. Thus, the fact that President Iohannis's promulgation of the law regulating the management of the bear population has generated mentions with considerable impact in this context is noteworthy.

Grafic NewsVibe. Comparison between the number of mentions of bears and the impact of mentions, over the past 30 days

In the last week, mentions of bears have appeared most in association with terms describing areas in Romania where the animals inhabit - particularly in mountainous counties - and in association with terms such as the name of President Iohannis or the verb "hunted". This latter element shows that a significant proportion of mentions of bears in the last week or so are related to yesterday's event.

NewsVibe charts. LEFT: top keywords included in Bears news and posts in the last week. RIGHT: top contexts in which the term was mentioned, in the last week

While yesterday's timing was important, the biggest impact of bear mentions comes amid the case in Italy, where local authorities in Trento canceled a bear-killing operation under pressure from activists who claimed the bear would be relocated to Romania. The news about the situation in Italy has clearly had an impact, not least because of its tabloid features.

Grafic NewsVibe. Comparison between the number of bear mentions and the impact of mentions, over the last 7 days , in the most relevant web sources and on the Facebook pages with the highest impact

*****Synthesis realized with the help of a monitoring feed provided by NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented were enhanced using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.