Bear Bump-In

The night we picked up our second group of Northwestern University students, we stepped out of a restaurant in downtown Sinaia (a mountain resort 2 hours north of Bucharest) and into the very approximate range of a very large European brown bear (as big as this pictured) who was in the process of turning over the restaurant dumpster. Briana started crying as we retreated into the restaurant. The wait staff shrugged their shoulders, "He's here every night." The rest of the diners hurried out with their cell phones poised to photograph. We asked one waiter if the bear had hurt anyone yet and he laughed, "Not yet!" We waited for what seemed an interminable amount of time and then linked arms and sang "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" at the top of our lungs with an empty wine bottle raised high in defense as we hurried terrified through the woods back to our rooms, at any moment expecting to be attacked.

The bear situation in Brasov (and vicinity which includes Sinaia) is not a laughing matter, even though our "run-in" is a bit comical, now. Half of Europe's brown bears are reported to make their home in Romania. One official reports with concern that the bear population is beyond normal size and is growing too rapidly. And another official reported, "It's incredible. There are 28 bears that live near Jepilor Street (in the city of Brasov), more than live in Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic combined." Tourists to Brasov are offered, at a price, the chance to view bears up close as they forage through neighborhood trash dumpsters. This is one factor contributing to the dangerously blurred line between the bears' domain and that of humans. In August a man was killed 50 meters from Brasov's "urban zone" while walking his dog. In the same month " a 20-year-old man was ripped to shreds by a large female foraging for food, as he slept on a bench in an alley near downtown Brasov." Two years ago a friend of ours, working for IOCC, was mauled to death while hiking near Brasov. It's not a laughing matter and is enough to keep us away from that beautiful region, at least for now.

Sources: http://www.evz.ro/articole/detalii-articol/815759/Oferte-turistice-pe-traseul-ursilor-de-tomberon/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4470979.ece