Day 23
Brown Bears in Romania
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Bună ziua,
Today was a special day, and Grandma was just about beside herself with excitement. Today we were going to look for Brown Bears in Romania.
Romania has Europe's largest population of Brown Bears, about 7,000 bears. So many bears, in fact, that bears and humans sometimes struggle to live side-by-side.
In the past bears have been treated terribly cruelly. They were kept in small cages outside restaurants, hotels, guesthouses, and petrol stations, as "tourist attractions" to lure customers. Keeping a large, wild animal designed to roam freely through the forest in a small cage caused all kinds of physical and psychological torture for the poor bears. Many of these captive bears were only ever fed corn. Being omnivores, just like humans, bears require a varied diet for good health and growth.
In 2005, after several years of struggle, a lady named Cristina Lapis opened Libearty Bear Sanctuary, just outside the town of Zarnesti, about a half hour drive from Brașov. Libearty Bear Sanctuary rescues captive bears from around Romania and gives them a place to live within 69 hectares of oak forest.
Driving from Brasov to Libearty Bear Sanctuary
About a half hour drive outside of Brașov? Well, it can be, at the right time of day. The second thing we discovered about driving in Brașov is that morning traffic is crazy. It took us half an hour to get to the next street!
It took about 90 minutes to drive to Libearty Bear Sanctuary, and that was just due to morning traffic. Later, driving home, we did the same drive in an easy 35 minutes. If you are ever lucky enough to visit Libearty Bear Sanctuary and you re driving from Brașov, we would recommend you leave two hours before your tour starts. We left an hour before our tour started, and we were still half an hour late!
You can only visit Libearty Bear Sanctuary during set times of the morning. There are no afternoon tours so that the bears can relax all afternoon. And all visits to the sanctuary are via a guided tour. You can't roam freely like the bears do. This is because human beings are stupid, and will ignore the rules if they think they can get away with it, and end up either electrocuting themselves on one of the electric fences, or upsetting the bears. We saw plenty of examples of this during our tour.
Despite being so late, the lovely team at Libearty Bear Sanctuary understood Brașov traffic and allowed us to join the next tour. We were very lucky.
The Bears
We'll just let the pictures do the talking. Grandma was so excited during the whole tour. Every bear Grandma saw was declared to be beautiful.
We could only use our iPhones for photographing the bears. You have to pay an extra 50 lei (about NZD$20) to use your camera within the park, whether it is a simple point-and-shoot or a sophisticated DSLR. Some some of the photos might not be as sharp as we'd like.
WILD Bears in Romania!
We headed back to our apartment for some lunch and a rest. At four o'clock we had another adventure planned.
Through the website Romanian Friend we had found a wild bear watching experience. Our guide met us in Brașov and about seven of us clambered into his old Mercedes Sprinter van. Off we went towards the foothills of the Carpathian mountains. There was a short hike, only about ten minutes of easy walking to a hide. It was a small cabin with one-way glass on one side.
We had to be very quiet. Walk quietly, talk in whispers. The rough wooden cabin even had carpeting to muffle the sound of our footsteps and the scraping of chairs.
We each found a chair in front of the window and we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.
It was very lightly raining, and just on dusk. Perfect conditions for wildlife. The little clearing we were watching is like a little intersection, where the paths of various animals meets in the forest, bears, foxes, sometimes wolves.
We waited.
Our guide, speaking in a very quiet voice, was able to tell us a little more about Brown Bears in Romania while we waited.
Then a fox appeared, trotting up a path past the hide and into the clearing. He sniffed about a bit, walked further up the path, then came back and did more sniffing.
Then slowly and cautiously a bear appeared. He was very long (the guide said he would stand over two metres tall), and very lean. He stayed in the clearing for a little while, cautiously watching about himself as we helped himself to some corn the guides had placed in the clearing earlier in the day.
We didn't really have the opportunity to talk photographs. The lighting was bad (we were looking through one-way glass at dusk) and we didn't want to risk our camera or iPhones accidently setting off their flash which would scare the bear away - and break one of the guides golden rules.
Sometimes it is better to put the camera down and watch. So that is what we did.
It was very cool to see a wild bear in the wild, and also know that he could see us and wouldn't be disturbed by us. He would go about his evening none the wiser.
After the bear left it was getting quite dark and raining heavier. So we hiked back to the van, and rode back to Brașov, for some dinner before bed.
What an absolutely amazing day we had. Bears!
Love to you all from Grandma & Koro & Buzzy Bee.