KDH: Government Draft Doesn't Allow Culling of Rare Animals for No Good Reason

Bratislava, April 25 (TASR) - The opposition KDH party rejects the idea that after the adoption of the government amendment to the Nature and Landscape Protection Act, emergencies could be declared allowing the unjustified culling of rare animals such as lynxes, jackals and wolves, KDH MP Marian Caucik stressed on Thursday. The party presented its amendment, which, according to him, has been adopted by the Environment Ministry. Caucik confirmed for TASR that KDH MPs will support the government amendment unless the proposal is fundamentally changed. He added that Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) originally came up with a constitutional law that KDH didn't support. So, it offered him its own solution, which the government adopted. "We reject the idea that we plan to allow protected animals to be shot," said Caucik, ruling out the possibility that the government amendment could be used to deliberately declare emergencies in order to cull very rare animals. "This isn't true. If such a thing were to happen, it would be a serious abuse of the law bordering on illegal activity," he stated, stressing that two conditions must be met in order to declare a state of emergency and shoot a protected species of large carnivores under it. "There must be a threat to the health of the population or great economic damage must be caused," he said. Parliament on Thursday began discussing a proposal for a fast-tracked legislative procedure concerning the amendment to the Nature and Landscape Protection Act tabled by the Environment Ministry. The draft states that an emergency could be declared due to the presence of a brown bear, as it can in the case of an earthquake or a terrorist attack. am/df