The bears live in deciduous forests on the slopes of the Carpathians,
at a height of between 800 and 1500 metres, but they do not hesitate to
descend to the valleys in search of food. In early autumn, they gorge themselves
on the 40,000 hectares of wild pear trees the Germans planted in the 17th
century in the north of Romania. As winter approaches, they eat acorns in
the oak forests of the southern Carpathians. As winter ends, and their stocks
of food hidden beneath the snow are used up, they descend to the villages
to pick over rubbish bins, much like the bears in North American parks.

The Ceausescu era was one of peace and quiet for the bears. For 15 years,
only the dictator had the right to hunt them, a limited threat, even though
the ‘Genius of the Carpathians’ was a committed hunter. Anyone else who
killed a bear ended up in prison with a fine of 80,000 lei – two years’
average salary. The number of bears in Romania nearly doubled between 1975
and 1989.

The bears became the terror of the villages. Without fear of reprisal,
they descended on barns to carry off sheep, and ravaged fields near villages.
‘We hadn’t seen such a concentration of bears near houses in two-and-a-half
centuries,’ says Tudor Danati, a forestry official in the town of Brasov.

Between the Danube and Moldavia, in the south of Romania, is a transition
zone from mountain wilderness to peasant gardens and pastures. Wooded hills
stretch to the horizon. There are plenty of raspberries, plums, currants,
acorns and small game – all claimed by both people and bears.

Near Curtea, in the Arges region of Romania, the forest is virgin for
1200 square kilometres. No people, no lumbering and no hunting. This Eden
was Ceausescu’s personal hunting reserve, an hour by presidential helicopter
from Bucharest.

Ceausescu hunted bears with a strange contempt. To get the best trophies,
he hung chunks of meat in the trees, high enough so that only bears more
than 2 1/2 metres tall could reach it. Bears quickly became rare in the
forest. So in 1974, Ceausescu decided to increase the bear population in
his domain. He had 30 year-old cubs captured, and kept in an enclosure near
the little village of Berevoiesti, in Arges.

At the time of their capture, they weighed between 8 and 10 kilograms.
After a year of communal living, they weighed 100 kilograms. Three times
a day they received bread, potatoes, boiled carrots and bacon – better rations
than most Romanians. The enclosure had swings to play on, and a pond.

‘After a year, the bears were turned loose in the forests,’ says Mitica
Georgescu, the forestry expert who was in charge of the experiment. ‘But
the results were catastrophic.’ They had developed some unusual behaviour,
and couldn’t get used to uncooked food. Unlike wild bears, they liked being
together, and they sought out their friends, the humans. The first bears,
released in June 1975, all died within the year of cold, hunger and disease.

Subsequent cubs received more natural food – raw meat, acorns and fruit.
They were taught not to regard people as friends. ‘When we brought the bear
its food, we hit it with branches. Only the feeders and cage cleaners could
go near them,’ says Pauna Ioan, another forestry expert involved in the
project. The 500 bears which were raised this way developed an unusual aggressiveness.
After their release, they survived well – but they also attacked cars and
hikers.

The foresters tracked their bears using a somewhat barbarous marking
technique. Every year they removed a different claw from their cubs. That
way they could tell wild bears from raised ones, and one year’s crop from
another. This project lasted eight years and cost 35 million lei. About
50 of these vicious orphans still lurk in the hills.

Aristide Stavos, an aloof 70-year-old who has spent his life observing
bears in the wild, says the 50 are nothing compared with the uncontrolled
proliferation of the rest of the bear population during the past 15 years.
These bears at first kept their traditional fear of humans. But as Romanians
moved deeper into the forest to gather wood or fruit, and built more and
more roads across the hills, the bears attacked more often.

Between Brasov and Curtea, the bear density is one every 1.25 square
kilometres. This is too small an area, say Romanian experts. A bear needs
10 square kilometres to support itself in the wild. In March 1990, a mere
three months after the fall of Ceausescu, the Romanians re-opened the bear
hunt.

The ministry of water and forests wants the population to fall to 4000
bears – the carrying capacity of the forests – by the year 2000. But will
the Romanians be able to stop at that number? A bearskin sells for $10,000
to $15,000 – big money, in hard currency, for a Romanian.

Moreover, can Romania control a lucrative hunting trade, fed by game-starved
Western Europeans with hard currency? I managed to go along on a hunt run
by an Austrian taxidermist last autumn. A company in Bucharest called Imatex
organises these hunts for Westerners, whose numbers have included Italians
and Belgians as well as Austrians. Old hunting chalets and top service are
laid on. Our party took less than an hour to find bears. The hunters killed
two, using dogs to surround the bears and bring them down. The five hunters
were Austrians – who paid extra for getting a shot in. The 20 beaters and
bearers, all paid good wages, were Romanian.

The quota between last March and this month was 300 bears. It is hard
to say whether the quota has been obeyed – some Romanians are hunting as
well, though few know how, or have the weapons. The problem will arise this
coming year, as the old system of employing a forest guard for every 17,000
to 30,000 hectares of forest is expected to end.

Some of the ‘crazy’ bears from the breeding experiment have met the
same end as their breeder – dead under Romanian guns. It is too soon to
say how many of their wild cousins will share the same fate.

Christine Laurent is a freelance science writer based in Paris.

The report was put together by scientists from the University of Bucharest,
working under Dan Manoleli, professor of biology and a member of the environmental
commission of the Romanian parliament. Each year, they say, 138 million
tonnes of sulphur and nitrogen oxides, ammonia, hydrochloric acid, chlorine
and soot enter the Romanian atmosphere. Another 6.9 million tonnes of pollutants
enter water courses and lakes. Some 45,000 tonnes of pesticides, many of
them highly persistent and toxic, are dumped on farmland.

Despite the fact that Romania is predominantly an agricultural country,
its antiquated and inefficient industries churn out as much pollution as
many highly industrial nations. According to Manoleli, coal-fired power
stations and petroleum refineries emit around 1.8 million tonnes of sulphur
dioxide a year. The steel industry, built up by Ceausescu, emits a further
5500 tonnes of sulphides, while the chemicals industry emits 8500 tonnes
of ammonia and 2300 tonnes of toxic phenols.

In Copsa Mica, called the most polluted town in Romania, 1400 tonnes
of soot from petrochemicals plants fall on the town each year as black rain.
In the provinces of Gorj, Maramures and Sibiu, the sulphur dioxide in the
air averages 12 times the official limit. The cities of Giurgiu, Braila
and Turnu-Severin suffer from severe acid rain. Romania’s official limits
are based on those set by the UN and are similar to limits used in the West,
but they are rarely enforced.

Romania’s vast forests have suffered from overwhelming pollution. Near
the steelworks of Galati and Hunedoara, and the phosphate and sulphuric
acid plants in the Calugareasca valley, tens of thousands of hectares of
trees have lost their leaves. Manoleli estimates that 5.5 per cent of the
Romanian forest has been defoliated.

Elsewhere in Romania, forests seem to have fared better than in many
other parts of Europe. Reforestation has more than made up for losses to
the timber industry. Deer, wild boar and other large forest mammals are
doing well. As many as 8000 bears and 1500 lynx survive in the Carpathian
forests.

Fish have been less fortunate. The rivers are full of chlorine, ammonia,
phenol, detergent and pesticides. The Danube delta, where the river flows
into the Black Sea, is on the receiving end of much of this pollution. Manoleli
estimates that of 70,000 kilometres of waterway in the basin, almost 3000
kilometres are completely dead. The water in a further 22,000 kilometres
of rivers is not fit to drink.

Erosion is another serious problem for Romania. According to Manoleli,
5 million hectares of agricultural land in the foothills of the Carpathians
are severely eroded. This is about a third of the land suitable for farming.
The quality of the soil in more than half the remaining farmland is extremely
poor in nutrients.

In the plains of Baragan and Moldavia, where agriculture is most intense,
persistent pesticides such as DDT and lindane, long banned or restricted
in the West, reach relatively high levels of up to eight parts per million
(ppm) in soil. Manoleli classes 900,000 hectares is seriously polluted and
200,000 hectares as totally unproductive.

Industrial effluents have also contaminated the soil with heavy metals.
Near the factories at Bali-Mare and Slatina, the amounts of lead and cadmium
in the soil are 30 times the official limits.