20 bears emerged onto a Carpathian mountain road in Romania in just three hours — tourists fed them by hand

Last week on the Transfăgărășan, the mountain road winding through Romania's Carpathians, 20 brown bears came out onto the asphalt within just three hours. Footage captured by Reuters shows the animals wandering between cars, sitting by the roadside and approaching drivers through open windows.

Drivers stopped on the bends to hand food to the bears, even though road signs explicitly ban feeding wildlife and violators face hefty fines. "Bears come almost every evening, mostly to the rubbish bins," said 59-year-old Jean Stangaciu from the town of Predeal. "They've grown used to us, to the people who live here. They're not afraid of anything."

Europe's largest population

According to Romania's Ministry of Environment, the country is home to between 10,000 and 13,000 brown bears — the largest population in Europe outside Russia. Over the past 20 years, bears have killed 30 people in Romania. In April, the country's parliament nearly doubled the annual cull quota: hunters are now allowed to shoot up to 900 animals this year and next. Environmentalists have sharply criticised the decision.

"Laws alone won't solve the problem"

"Tightening legislation won't resolve the conflict between humans and bears," says Cristina Lapis, director of the Libearty bear sanctuary. "The culling won't happen in the areas where bears come out onto the Transfăgărășan. Hunters will go deeper into the forest and hunt trophy bears there instead." The sanctuary currently houses around 140 animals — cubs that lost their mothers, as well as bears that local residents had captured and used as tourist attractions.

Ciprian Galusca of the Romanian Association for Climate Change Adaptation notes that human behaviour itself is part of the problem. "We need to understand that the conflict also arises from how we treat wild animals," he says. "Even if only three bears were left in the forest, without changing our own behaviour, problems would still arise with them too." According to Galusca, people continue to ignore the feeding ban, rubbish remains easily accessible to bears, and electric fencing is underused.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz