It's late June and we (Sasa and myself) are sitting in a high chair close to a feeding station for bears, high in the cool, shady, forested hills of Gorski Kotar in northern Croatia. The car that dropped us off has just left, and we are settling in for an evenings bear watching. In less than 10 minutes we hear the sounds of something, or somethings, crashing through the forest behind us, and suddenly there on the road is a female brown bear and 3 cubs of the year. For the next hour we get to watch this family eating maize from the feeding station. Finally, they return to the forest, leaving us with a good memory of a mid-summer night.
Text: John Linnell / Photo: Sasa Kunovac