Video Captures Frightening Encounter With Bear In Wild

I had to share this video from Italy.  As many of on the blog know, my primary recreation is backpacking and hiking. I have often shared photos of wild animals spotted on those trips but this video from the Brenta Mountains in the Italian Alps is quite unnerving.  To have a large bear moving toward such a small child is really dangerous but thankfully everyone (particularly this young boy) remained calm and cool.

I have been surprised by black bears and Grizzly bears during hikes.  They are gorgeous but nothing to trifle with.  We have previously seen highly irresponsible conduct by people near bears (here and here).  This family seems to have been surprised by the bear and does well to extricate themselves from the situation.

The video shows how magnificent these animals are in the wild. I have been a long critic of trophy or thrill hunters, including the killing of bears (here and here and here).

Despite my love for Italy (where my family originates on my mother’s side), I was surprised by the image of this bears in the wild.  It turns out that Brenta is one of the few places to see bear in the wild with roughly 30 in the park.  This looks like a beautiful Marsican brown bear (or an “Apennine brown bear”) that is part of the Eurasian brown bear population. They are not known to be aggressive but that does not mean there are not exceptions. One concern I would have (beyond a massive bear following my son) would be that these are nocturnal animals.  A bear like this moving around in the day could indicate cubs or mating — neither of which is a good thing to happen upon.