Watching The Slovenian Brown Bear

On my last trip to Slovenia, when I went exploring the countryside and indulging in great local cuisine, I had the chance to get a bit closer to one of Europe’s largest mammals. When I realised I would be watching the Slovenian brown bear in its natural habitat, a mix of excitement and hesitation took me over. “How on earth will that happen?” I first thought. Then, I remembered the famous adventure quote by Aristotle, “adventure is worthwhile” and got even more excited about the experience I was going to have.

Already intrigued, following my visit to Lake Cerknica, I arrived at Mlakar guesthouse, run by Miha, dropped my suitcase and met the man himself, who drove me and my colleague Reeta into the forests of the Dinaric Karst, one of the last refuges for the brown bear in Europe. During the ride up into the forest, Miha explained about his job with adventure and nature photographers coming here to see the bears, who remain undisturbed, and all the precautions taken to prevent bears to even smell us in our hides.

WATCHING THE SLOVENIAN BROWN BEAR

After the ride, we walked for less than five minutes to reach out hide 12 metres high up a ladder – one of ten that Miha owns in the region and large enough for two people. That meant Miha was dropping us there and going back, leaving us behind to, with some luck, experience an afternoon brown bear watching and photographing. Once he dropped some dried corn and fruits on a slope, he left. From now on, it’d be four hours on our own. We couldn’t talk, we couldn’t make any noise and, of course, we couldn’t “go to the toilet”.

Soon we saw the bushes moving. “The bear!”, we thought. But it was only some cheeky ferret eating the food left behind. Then some nice blue and grey birds did the same. I think I was asleep, when Reeta whispered excited “the bear!”. I looked towards the small rocky slope on the hill and there he was.

He looked around cautiously, probably after hearing our cameras clicking. Once he saw he was alone, he started eating the food. I was stunned by how fragile our friend seemed to be, despite its size. Our brown bear’s behaviour reminded me of a naughty child left alone by his parents. He played around with his food, jumped a few times scared by the birds, looked at his surroundings to make sure he was alone and ran after butterflies. At times he’d seem very goofy – but we know looks can be deceiving! For a moment, it looked like he had spotted us, but he was too busy playing with his food.

About one hour later, our friend decided to call it a day and we just sat there, looking at our pictures, whispering at each other and waiting for Mihal to pick us up. That was probably the longest hour in my life, but after watching the brown bear doing what brown bears to… who cares about the wait?

Upon returning to the guesthouse, we and our other colleagues were discussing, in excitement, details of our afternoon with Slovenian brown bears.

Want to see the Slovenian brown bear, too? Contact Miha on SlovenianBears.com.

Disclaimer: This experience was part of the Slovenian #PureNature project. But, as you know, all opinions and long sentences are my own. All photos are my own, apart from those without my name, which belong to SlovenianBears.com.