As someone who grew up in a small town surrounded by the forest, I am used to seeing paw prints in the mud or snow and wildlife wandering through the streets. I've seen foxes and deer, once even a bear cub wandering through the garden. Now Latvia is reconsidering its bear population and may cap the number of bears allowed in the country.

After centuries of near extinction, brown bears, wolves, and lynxes are making a comeback across Europe. Today, around 25,000 brown bears live across Europe, 17% more than in 2016. Meanwhile, wolves have increased by 35%, while the population of golden jackals has risen by 46%.

While conservationists celebrate the return of these carnivores, farmers and rural communities face more pressing problems, like losing livestock to the predators. This presents a difficult reality: how to balance ecological recovery with human livelihoods and safety.

To deal with the growing wildlife populations, countries such as Sweden, Romania, Latvia, and Slovakia have expanded their policies on predator culls and count on carefully regulated input from hunters. But it is not easy, as many of them are protected species both on the European and local level, such as bears and lynxes, among others. Wolves, well, their level of protection was reduced just recently, because their overpopulation is threatening other protected species.