World’s largest bear – a natural monument

Slovenia prides itself on its large beasts (the wolf, the lynx and the bear) which are permanently protected. The brown bear has been protected since the end of the 19th century, and it has been protected by law since the middle of the 20th century, which has raised many controversies in the general public and a general consensus hasn’t yet been reached.
The permanent exhibition of the hunting department of the museum features the hide of a brown bear which was killed in the forest of Snežnik in 1972 by a German hunter. The public authorities of the time adopted a decree on protecting certain trophies as natural monuments, which disallowed the foreign hunter from exporting his hunt, but they did give him permission to kill another bear as a “consolation prize”.
A year later, the giant bear hide became world champion. The international hunting exhibition in Torino had a special jury that assessed the hide and awarded it 419,50 points. That meant this was the largest bear hide ever exhibited until then at a world exhibition.
As a natural monument the bear found its place in the Technical museum of Slovenia, where it is still on display to this day.