The State Nature Protection Organization of the Slovak Republic informed the TASR agency that Šmíd took into account the series of medialized attacks and public controversies that accompanied his tenure in office.
“Despite his belief in the correctness and expertise of the work performed, he decided to prioritize the interests of the institution and the protection of its reputation,” the organization said.
According to Denník N Šmíd, in November 2013 he hid backpacks with food, documents, payment cards, mobile phones and dry clothes from two Czech speleologists Karl Jindra and Jiří Štěpánek. Šmída justified this by the fact that he did not give his consent to visit the Moon Shadow cave in the High Tatras, which he discovered.
Czech speleologists explored the aforementioned cave, and when they left the cave after three days in freezing weather, they could not find their backpacks. In wet clothes and in the cold, they had to descend from an altitude of 1,800 meters and continue on foot for ten kilometers. They only took care of them at the info center in Lysá Poľan.
Šmída then confessed to hiding the backpacks and told Czech speleologists where he hid them. In 2018, he additionally apologized for his act.
Czech speleologists reported the exploration of the Moon Shadow cave to the national park administration, and one of the cave’s discoverers, Igor Pap, participated in the event.
Šmída is a geologist and speleologist, discoverer of caves in Slovakia and abroad. He discovered the Moon Shadow cave in 2004 together with Pap.
