We took another white road, but turned after a few miles as was washed out and not looking good if we pressed on. The tar roads were extremely small anyway so enjoyable. Finally found the bear sanctuary village but the road was closed as re-laying it. I carried on up as no-one stopped us and then the road workers stopped us where they were actually laying and when I explained were we were trying to get to they pointed at a bit of the old road we could use. Got past that but other end blocked by rollers etc - a nearby resident shouted a driver over and they very helpfully obliged and I Squeezed through
The village of Kuterevo is where you'll find the bear sanctuary and worth the effort. Bit hippyish in set-up, but no harm in that, it's all about caring. We rode up, parked up and wandered up to some enclosures - no one about but I'd read it was volunteer run and no charge so just explored.
We were lucky when we arrived as there was one adult bear chomping on a cabbage when we got to the very large comfortable (compared to what these animals have suffered before getting here anyway) enclosure. Bruno was discovered languishing in a 5Ft by ft cage behind a bar, poor bastard. He'd been there 40yrs.
Now I don't know about you, but I just guessed European bears would be about the size of a human crouching...considerably smaller than American bears and pretty few in number
Well, we discovered that wasn't quite the case, these are BIG bloody bears - I guess pretty similar size to their American cousins, quote "The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is the world's most widely distributed species of bear that is found throughout large parts of North America and Eurasia. The brown bear and its sister species, the polar bear, are regarded as one of the two biggest terrestrial carnivores living in the world today"
Aye, there it is then, wrong!
So to second part, apparently there are around 1200 bears in Croatia...yes...just Croatia. So not that rare really & if you are off the beaten track....in a wood...you might just conceivably surprise one.
Glad I didn't know that on day one in Croatia. Please take note of size of paws and claws!
These details we found out when we went down to what I guess you'd call the visitor center. Met the bloke who'd set it up and several volunteers came up to talk to us, many French, then one says to another, 'you should maybe speak to these as they are English'. 'I know' she says, 'how' he says 'by the GB on their number plate'. Blimey this lass speaks good English I think. Well she would wouldn't she, from Leeds! Told us the back story and then we went to the other enclosures were three younger bears where, well, they were younger, but two looked pretty full sized to me. Spent ages just watching them too.
Bears have such serene small soft looking eyes (I'd not be fooled by the way!) and you imagine all sorts looking into them somewhere like here - this lot have had hard lives and won't ever get into the wild, not been taught the life skills they'd need. For some reason the nearby hamlets dogs started barking and all the bears pricked up their ears - aware that could spell trouble in past I suspect. Interestingly I went back down on myself with Bev's phone to take a picture to send home and for whatever reason the big bear stood up on his hind legs (Christ!
) made a wild whistling noise and all three hightailed into the bushes. I must just have reminded him of some past bad experience.
A very worthy place, more here
https://kuterevo.wordpress.com/bears/ and if you feel like it you can gift them but I haven't been able to find out how. We gave them something in Euros before we left. If down this way well worth a visit and worth supporting.