A CARPATHIAN EXPERIENCE. Strategies for entering bear lands

And here I am in 2024, back to wandering the woods and back to the chance of meeting the bears who live in these mountains: Europe’s largest community of brown bears.

Fearing a forest full of bears is simply human. Because here their presence is actually perceivable and, if you learn how to read their traces, you realize you are walking their walks, crossing their paths, and the chances of meeting them are real. I do not feel this fear. It is muddled by the unconscious desire that pushes me to go, enter and know, blend with the wood.

I generally roam patches of woodland that survive among the fields, but this year I would like to venture towards Mt. Ciucaş, for a two-days immersive experience in one of the wildest areas of the Carpathians, almost unattended by humans, but crawling with wildlife. Everybody warns about not going there alone, like I would do in the Alps or the Apennines, so I’ll set up to go with someone. To enter a Romanian forest, you have to do things differently, you have to compromise.

A bear can attack when he gets scared, in an unexpected close encounter. Otherwise, sensing our smell, he would simply take a different route. To a bear, we aren’t ideal preys, there are tastier animals, and he favours a mostly vegetarian diet. Blueberries or raspberries, a beehive or an anthill are more appetizing than a human being. Unfortunately, the growing bad habit of feeding wild animals (including bears) has recently made my explorations more dangerous and less feasible. “Sunday tourists” aren’t the only ones to blame: Forest Rangers are systematically setting up food- collecting (even meat) points to keep these animals from entering villages, storming sheepfolds and attacking the herds that inhabit these lands.

Sheep farming is still widely practiced: you can meet a herd the same way you can meet a wood, except that it moves while you stay still, and it crosses you disappearing in the distance to the sound of their bells, the shepherd’s whistles and their animal-directing jargon. Man, animals, pastures, woods. We have lived like this for millennia. Moreover, it would be more dangerous to encounter sheepdogs. While the bear changes his route when he perceives your presence, the sheepdog points at you to push you away calling for the other dogs. He has been trained to this.

Had he not been accustomed, the bear would never seek us as he is afraid, too. Fear is an emotion we share with animals, along with curiosity. Just like us, animals are ruled by fear and desire, two emotional poles that influence our and their behaviour. And one who is afraid runs. But then he often halts to stare at you from afar. Just like roe deer that, after fleeing, stop a few leaps ahead, curious of who we are, what shape we have, to know us. Gazing at each other from a distance, making eye contact to penetrate something below the surface, like cows do. Such an encounter occurs with certain animals, a spontaneous and mutual eye-gazing, crossing sights. While grazing cows, for instance, one feels continuously watched, and the feeling of mutual observation is very strong. You are object to their attention way more than they are to yours. They stare at you in a choir while busy ruminating.

Also this year, I’m asking who dwells the woodlands and the surrounding areas if they have met the bear, to compare the different tales from a territory where Man has always lived together with these mighty mammals. Lately they have grown in numbers and look more confident with human beings.

Ghiţă, cowherd in Băileti: ”Yes, I’ve seen the bear three times recently, but this is the Chicken Bear: when he hears the dogs or my whistling you see him run!”

Cristina in Hărcăuaia: “Going to the daily morning milking and roaming the hills in the evenings, have you ever seen the bear?” “I haven’t, and neither I wish to!”, she says.

Forest rangers (Ocolul Silvic) from Teliu at Cabana Piruşca: “From here to Mt. Ciucaş it is crawling with bears. The problem is they have repositioned in this area bears coming from Tămpa, close to Braşov who are used to living close to human beings and can draw near them.

Alex: ”Yes, but they monitored them and, after a few days, the bears got back to Tămpa, 40 km away from the place they had been taken..”

Dani: “The area of Mt. Ciucaş is one of the wildest in the Carpathians.”

Cosmin: “We have been camping many times, with tents and food. You only need to be in a group and make yourself heard: they do not get close. The dog once marked the territory so much that the smell was unbearable. He was probably sensing the bear.”

Stranger: “Real bears live here: those who aren’t used to human beings, who are afraid and flee when they hear you.”

While roaming the woodlands, our guiding thought is: How to avoid meeting the bear? We would actually like to meet him, only from a safety distance, and this requires precautions.

Throughout the years I have asked many locals and put together a manual of tips and strategies about how to behave in a forest, including when meeting a bear, together with reports of close encounters.

– Rule number one is going in noisy groups. Chatting, singing, whistling, making ourselves heard to keep the afar. Making sounds that don’t resemble animal calls. This is not exactly the way I like going into a wood, in fact it is the opposite of what I would instinctively do. The chatter of a group is annoying to me as well as it is for bears, wild boars, and wolves. I bought a flute.

– Walking calmly and attentively. A good attitude would be being able to read tracks, recognize footprints and droppings, how old they are, who might be dwelling a trail, but also the signals our body gives us before ratio-mentis takes charge.

– When seeing a bear from the distance, besides keeping calm and not fleeing, some suggest to get close to each other in order to look like one huge animal, instead of a group of small potential preys, to the eyes of the bear, whose sight in daylight is not that good. To the same purpose, if wearing a waterproof cloak, you can open your arms and side line with the other group members. Not having any interest in meeting with us, he should naturally walk away taking a different route.

– If the encounter with the bear looks more threatening, I was suggested to bring firecrackers with me to scare him away. Firecrackers are forbidden, but someone gave me a box. I wander whether I would be able to light one and toss it far enough to avoid scaring myself more than the bear.

– If the encounter is close, keep calm and still, look at him avoiding eye contact and talk to him peacefully, do not obstruct his path, and grant him the room to pass by. Walk away slowly, without fleeing.

– In case of an attack, the only real weapon is keeping bear spray, a chili extract, at hand. Remove the safety tab, aim at the bear’s face and squirt when he is about 5 metres away (there is one that reaches 10 m, but it costs an excessive €100. Not that my life is worth any less, but an encounter with a bear is a really exceptional event, regardless what they say). What I wander is whether I would really be able to perform such an action under the attack of a bear, with my blood freezing and fear at its peak. I think I would be paralyzed unable to do anything. Should this happen, I would have to rely on my cool head and on some reminiscence of or ancestors’ past lying in the reptilian brain that I hope would start in case of real need.

– Finally, another vital clue is not bringing any food which smell could attract bears. No fruit, sweets, dries meat, cheese, anything which is not sealed in cans or plastic. But with the locals, who, since childhood, have been used to roaming the mountains and camping and having barbecues, this is impossible.

And so it was that, together with Alexandru and Valeriu, aside from my Mexican bean tins and freeze-dried noodles, we set off to Mt Ciucaş with bread, cheese, eggs, biscuits, tomatoes and cârnăciori, the typical local tiny sausages.

 

 

NEXT: Incursions with Diana De Luca

NEXT: A walk between Muntele Ciucas and Muntele Rosu