Romanian Bears
7’ 25”
| Brasov scenery | Music | 00:00 |
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| GRIFFITHS: If you go down to the town of Brasov today you’re sure of a big surprise. For every night, at the edge of town, where the suburbs meet the forest, you’ll find some rather large, rather hairy, uninvited guests. | 00:22 |
| Bears in rubbish bins | Music | 00:41 |
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| GRIFFITHS: It’s a teddy bear’s picnic alright -- or more likely -- a bear’s buffet. | 01:00 |
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| Music | 01:06 |
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| GRIFFITHS: The nightly feast draws the tourists, and for residents, it’s a source of pride. | 01:10 |
| Woman | WOMAN: When my grandson was younger and he was staying with me here, he bought a big watermelon and cut it into slices and he was feeding the bears by hand. And they didn’t do anything to him. | 01:18 |
| Bears in rubbish bins | Music | 01:36 |
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| GRIFFITHS: Bears will eat just about anything. And so they do here, foraging through the bins of one of Romania’s largest towns. | 01:38 |
| Garbage truck arrives | Until, that is, the garbage truck rolls up, and rudely interrupts their dinner. | 01:47 |
| Garbageman | GARBAGEMAN: They create problems because they drag the garbage from the bins and take them uphill and make a mess. | 02:00 |
| Romanian scenery | Music | 02:12 |
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| GRIFFITHS: Romania’s bear population flourished under the former dictator Nikolai Ceausescu. Hunting was a hobby of his, but he banned anyone else from shooting bears. Their numbers soared and it’s now thought there could be as many as six thousand. | 02:19 |
| Transylvania scenery | Music | 02:40 |
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| GRIFFITHS: In Transylvania’s fairytale landscape, bears and people often come face to face. | 02:50 |
| Bordean and sheep | GRIFFITHS: The king of the forest is an everyday sight for shepherd Pavel Bordean. | 03:01 |
| Shepherd’s dogs | Most of the time he keeps them at bay with the help of his dogs. But one day - he got a bit too close to a big, brown bear. | 03:12 |
| Pavel Bordean | BORDEAN: He hit me with his paw. He knocked me down and bit me here, and the dogs saved me. | 03:27 |
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| I don’t think that the bear is an animal who attacks because he wants to. I think this is an animal who attacks to defend himself. | 03:36 |
| Bears in cages | LAPIS: Max is a sad story... GRIFFITHS: Cristina Lapis rescues bears that have been snatched from the wild and kept in captivity. | 03:48 |
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| LAPIS: The master, he had put needles in his eyes to blind him, to make him dependent of him. And he destroyed his smell with chemical sprays. | 04:00 |
| Lapis | It’s incredible what human beings can do. | 04:13 |
| Lapis throwing food to bears in enclosure | LAPIS: She adore pizza, she loves pizza. | 04:18 |
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| GRIFFITHS: She’s saved more than thirty animals from circuses, markets and restaurants where they were put on show to attract patrons. | 04:25 |
| Hidden camera. Distressed bear in cage | GRIFFITHS: It is now illegal to keep bears in captivity in Romania. But it isn’t difficult to find people flouting the law. | 04:37 |
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| We used a hidden camera to film this large male bear kept in a cage at a petrol station. Its owner has so far resisted attempts to free the animal. | 04:49 |
| Lapis. Super: | LAPIS: He sustained that this bear is his property and he doesn’t want to go. So we have to confiscate him. | 05:03 |
| Sunflower/bears in quarantine cages | GRIFFITHS: Cristina Lapis is waging a broader battle, too. | 05:10 |
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| Hunting has made a comeback. Just as in Communist times it’s an elite practice -- but it’s now open to anyone who can pay the fee of several thousand dollars. | 05:18 |
| Montage – stuffed bears | Music | 05:34 |
| Daniti | GRIFFITHS: Veteran hunter Tudor Daniti guides wealthy western Europeans through the forests to claim their trophies. | 05:40 |
| Daniti. Super: | DANITI: The bear is a rare animal and just like a person desires something that is out of reach, in the same way he wants to shoot a bear because then others will call him a ‘bearhunter’. | 05:48 |
| Bearskins and heads on display | GRIFFITHS: The bear hunt is limited to about three hundred animals a year. The hunting association says there are more than enough bears to sustain that quota. Tudor Daniti has even likened it to a controlled cull. But for Cristina Lapis it’s more like killing a childhood friend. | 06:11 |
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| LAPIS: They like to sleep with a teddy bear, they go travel with teddy bear, and when they arrive adult the kill the teddy bear. | 06:32 |
| Lapis. Super: | It’s like they kill the dream from their childhood. | 06:40 |
| Return to bears in rubbish bins in Brasov | Music | 06:45 |
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| GRIFFITHS: At the bins of Brasov, the banquet has been served up again. | 06:56 |
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| Music | 07:00 |
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| GRIFFITHS: Despite their obviously healthy numbers, there are warnings that the future of Romania’s bears is precarious, and there’s a growing number of people who want them protected with all the gusto of a hungry bear tucking into a tasty picnic. | 07:07 |
| Credits: | Reporter: Emma Griffiths Camera : Louise Rollout Research : Mihai Radu Editor : Simon Brynjolffssen | 07:25 |