A ski instructor intent on luring a brown bear away from a group of skiers began skiing downhill, prompting the bear to charge after him in a full sprint, much like another bear did at the same Romanian ski resort in January.
The latest encounter occurred last Tuesday at Predeal Ski Resort in the Transylvanian mountains where Adrian Stoica was chased by the charging, teeth-baring brown bear for nearly three minutes.
“I was just checking the ski slope condition before I take my students for a ski lesson,” Stoica explained to ABC News International. “As I was skiing down the mountain, a bear suddenly appeared on the slope and a group of at least 15 skiers was trapped on the spot. I told them to try to chase the bear away by making noise and shouting. It did not work.”
Stoica started recording video, and after three minutes, he started making his way down the slope. The bear immediately gave chase.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fk7gAsEHfk
“I slowly waved my arms, slowly moved out of the group and made the bear come after me as he was really close to the group,” he told ABC. “I was just hoping that the bear would get tired and would go back to the forest.”
But it didn’t tire easily. Twice it momentarily halted its chase but resumed seconds later. Some tense moments ensued when he saw skiers up ahead.
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“I had to warn them carefully while both me and the bear came whizzing past them,” Stoica said.
The bear got close a few times, but in the end, it gave up the chase and turned off the slope and returned to the forest.
“It was a horror, but also an experience of a lifetime — alone with a wild animal in the wilderness,” Stoica told ABC.
Stoica acted nonchalantly throughout the episode, despite the bear coming so close and it being such a dangerous encounter, but he explained to ABC that it was important to “stay calm,” saying “bears feel the fear.”
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Romania is said to be home to more than 7,000 brown bears, the largest population in Europe outside Russia.
A similar episode occurred in January, prompting authorities to issue alerts to warn residents of the danger. In that instance, the skier dropped the backpack he was wearing and it distracted the bear, which stopped chasing the skier to examine the backpack.
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