This year I chose for my birthday, at the end of summer, to hike from Brasov. Towards Gabony's steps I was already getting ready to put bear spray on the outside of my backpack. I said to have it handy. I enjoyed the idea that we were sharing, me and the bears, a space for a few hours.
Here in Brasov, I recently asked a wildlife researcher how we can narrow this widening gap between those who want to save bears in a way or another and those who don't want them to be anymore. He answered with another question. "Where are you from?" Aha, Bucharest.
I understood what he was implying. From my own home it was easier to talk about conservation, as I didn't have to live among them. Then he looked towards Tâmpa and told me about a den of bears that would be right there, under the letters.
It's always been complicated with the bears, but never more so than now, especially if you have watched the news this summer, after a girl died on a trail in Bucegi, attacked by a bear. A popular trail, that I've even hiked down several times at night.
Therefore I made an inventory of where we are today and what we know.
So, how many bears do we have after all? Does it matter?
We don't know exactly how many bears we have - although an older estimation tells us that 8,000, the most in Europe, but they’ve never been scientifically counted. An ongoing census, national, with fecal samples and hair from the field, will give us more accurate data in 2025.
But that won't solve our conflicts, experts say. Because local needs and solutions vary - from waste management to installing electric fences.
How does the bear change its demeanor and how much does it matter?
Well, we know that bears are constantly changing their behavior. Winters are milder, shorter, so they sleep less. Their food differs from forest to forest. Some have remained bushy, from others the men continuously cut and shortened this natural barrier between us and them.
And in towns or villages near mountain forests we don't have the most bear-smart garbage bins. Many still, we know that open easily, are climbable, and the bear will always get used to it and take advantage of it. As the opportunist he is.
So how do we know we are having more and more bear conflicts caused by them?
Well, we don`t know.
Beyond the occasional specific human "versus" bear cases mediatized on TV, there is only one scientific study that listed, in 2019, human-brown bear conflicts at a global scale.
Romania had, truly, the most conflicts inventoried in Europe back then, counting 131, but in many cases, it was the man who stubbornly chased the bear that ate a sheep or goat from the sheepfold. To this day, some people still take bear cubs from the den, others try to photograph them, feed them or barbecue in the middle of the forest.
So what other solutions would there be before shooting bears?
In the bear census project it is also included the realization of a sanctuary by 2025, right here in Brasov county. At the moment we have one in Zărnești, which has almost 150 bears.
Many are rescued from captivity, but Zărnești has also received in recent years problem bears from the wild. Many voices say that relocation is not a solution, the bears have more often than not returned from where they left. Except here we're talking about fenced territory, not about permutations in the open forest.
How do we reason, though, that shooting hundreds of bears will be the best solution for a balance in the ecosystem?
Brown bears are strictly protected under EU directives and are part of the reason why we are among the leaders of the EU in biodiversity.
But after the case of the girl in the Bucegi, we used a legal exception to decide to kill several hundreds yearly with the scope to better control the population and to protect our population. Before, only the dangerous ones, that came close to households were moved or killed. About 100 a year.
By the culling measure we are saying we are maintaining control of a species that does indeed have the population on an "upward trend", as experts say. We're arguing we're putting them out of their misery. That is, we're saving them from a slow death - as in cases of poaching involving nooses or poisons, when people want to take justice into their own hands. Moreover, we also bring money into the state budget.
Theoretically, for a bear that is hunted by a foreigner, thousands of euros may go into the budgets of the Ranger Districts- which will help to make up for the lack of funds that would be needed for prolonged interventions.
Beyond the measure itself, we don't know exactly how we will organize ourselves in the field in the long term or how we will measure results. We don't know how many bears will come out in the promised 2025 count. But we do know that fear remains all around us. When the bear ate the only pig that was supposed to be on your Christmas table, you don't have conservation in your head. So that's what we know we're counting on today - a promise of balance.
And a bear spray, on hiking trips.
