If you live in Europe, you have surely heard of Romania as a source of endless streams of, well, let’s just say, dubious immigrants that are looking for alternative income sources in the more advanced Western countries of the continent. If you live across the ocean – basically any ocean – you might have not heard of the country in your life. Actually, Romania is also a great source for talent for the Western companies, with well trained specialists willing to work in their field or out of it, but this is not something the media likes to focus on – it’s not sensational news, after all. And the country is also a place with huge patches of sometimes untouched wilderness, home to a series of animals Westerners have most likely have only seen inside a zoo. Like bears, for example.
I don’t have access to the most recent assessment of Romania’s bear population, but a relatively recent paper speaks of the country as home to almost half of Europe’s brown bears. According to a 2010 study, about 6,000 brown bears roam the Carpathians, looking for food, safety and – sometimes – trouble. The large, furry omnivores that kids love so much (well, at least in their stuffed form) are known to venture into human habitats foraging for food, especially focusing on the trash cans, as an ultimate form of canned food for them.
The latest news about a large, furry bear paying a visit to one of the country’s major settlements – Brasov, a city with over 250,000 inhabitants – last September. The animal was “jogging” on one of the city’s boulevards (luckily it was not crowded at the time) at night, and it was filmed by a biker passing by. And this is not something unusual for the residents of Brasov – brown bears pay their visits often to the city’s inhabitants living near the foothills of the Tâmpamountain.
A few years ago – in 2011, to be exact – the city of Brasov was the subject of a veritable “bear invasion”. The animals – either driven by the lack of food in their natural habitat or, maybe, their freshly acquired taste for canned food – have repeatedly explored the outskirts of the city. The authorities have tried several solutions to keep them away – surrounding the trash cans with fences, both electric and not, for example – but the furry visitors kept returning. They have even tried to keep them in the woods by leaving them bags of sweets – chocolate, candy bars and other delicious treats – far from the city, which the bears gracefully accepted. But they still keep returning to the city year after year.
Naturally, in areas such as this, residents are best advised to stay indoors to avoid meeting a bear. This could become a little boring, especially for people who enjoy the outdoors, but there are activities that prove enjoyable, such as playing at all slots. They have a wide variety of casino games and you can win big cash…while you avoid getting attacked by a bear.
Romania might not be a country where bears literally eat out of the locals’ hands, but still it is the place where you are most likely to stumble into one during the late summer – especially at night.
