Romania: Bear attacks have left two people dead, but it isn't only the animals that are to blame, writes Chris Stephen in Brasov.
The Carpathian mountains that soar above the pretty town of Brasov in Romania's Transylvania province are usually a boon for townsfolk, a source of relaxation and much-needed money from legions of walkers and skiers. But all that has changed in the past few weeks after an attack by a bear that left two dead, seven more badly mauled and the town on red alert.
With daily sightings of bears entering the town scavenging for food, police are patrolling the tree-line, new laws have been rushed in to ban night-time garbage dumping, and the nearby forests have been quarantined.
Warnings about the dangers of attack are being issued and tourist agencies hope that the news does not frighten off the skiers now booking for the new year holiday.
And for the townsfolk, the event has triggered old memories of the constant struggle waged in these mountains for centuries between man and beast.
The first warnings of trouble came in the summer, when bears were spotted coming out of the forest to eat from garbage bins on the edge of town.
Far from discouraging them, local people ignored warnings and flocked to watch. Taxi drivers began charging tourists €30 for a nightly trip out to watch.
To the fury of more conservative residents, the locals began feeding the bears, with one photograph, published in the local paper, showing a man with a steak in his mouth and the other end of the steak being nibbled by a bear.
In July this familiarity claimed its first casualty, when a walker was attacked and badly injured when he got too close to a bear in the hills above the town.
But repeated reminders from city fathers about the danger of being too familiar with these wild animals were ignored, and many here believe tragedy was inevitable.
Late last month a local man, barbecuing a steak, saw a bear watching curiously from nearby undergrowth. He picked up the griddle and its sizzling meat and went into the bushes.
The animal made a grab for the meat but missed, its paw striking the hot metal grill pan. The injured bear then went berserk, striking the man and killing him instantly.
It panicked, rushed out of the bushes, straight into a group of walkers coming the other way. Within seconds the bear had savaged eight of them, one so severely he later died in hospital.
Army special forces in helicopters were called in. They tracked down the animal, cornered it and shot it in the car park of a local factory. Initial reports that it had rabies were later discounted.
This episode has caused anger among townspeople, directed not against the bears but at those ignoring strictures governing the separation of man and beast contained in local laws, in folk tales and even traditional Transylvanian nursery rhymes.
"Bears attack cows and pigs, but not humans. Under normal circumstances we are not on the menu," Tudor Daneti, president of the Brasov Hunting and Fishing Association told The Irish Times. "Adults must understand that they cannot go into the forest like that."
Brasov is one of the oldest towns in Transylvania, tracing its origins back more than 800 years. It has enjoyed a rich and sometimes bloody history, fought over by warlords including Vlad Tepes, the real-life Dracula, whose former castle is at nearby Bran.
But this history and Brasov's picturesque setting mean increasing numbers of tourists are taking to the hills, starting fires and eating the blackberries, blueberries and apples that are also food for the bears.
The second problem is that there are too many bears. Conservation in Transylvania has worked too well.
In the post-war period, while western Europe was busy exterminating bears, Romania's communists were busy saving them - so that they could be hunted.
This policy peaked under the reign of the last communist president, Nicolae Ceausescu, who, rather than stalk bears, demanded they be brought to him.
"Ceausescu would say he wanted a bear to be at such-and-such a place at five o'clock, and you had to provide one," said Mr Daneti.
To keep the forests well stocked, raw meat carcases were dumped across the forests by air force helicopters, resulting in a bear population far greater than the environment could sustain.
This support disappeared with the 1989 revolution, but Romania later signed the Bern Convention, which makes bear hunting illegal without clearance from the convention's monitors.
The result has been that Romania now has 5,500 bears, half the total in Europe, together with a third of the grey wolves and a third of the lynx. It is a conservationist's dream, but a forest ranger's nightmare.
"Near our town is the Timis valley with 14,000 hectares, which is enough to support 14 bears," said Mr Daneti. "The total is more than 40, so you can see the problem."
The result is that each autumn, Brasov and towns and villages across the Carpathians brace themselves for disturbances from the bears. In late August, Romania's brown bears begin an energetic hunt for the food they will need to get them through their winter hibernation, and with the forests unable to provide, they turn to the only other source of food - man.
This year, as before, Transylvania is alive with stories of bears breaking into garbage bins, beehives and kitchens.
In one story, a woman in Moldova came downstairs after hearing a noise to find a bear had opened her fridge door and was devouring the contents.
"The problem of bears has been here all the time, for centuries, and people should be used to it," said Radu Cocor, working at Brasov's Saint George Orthodox Church, famous for its twin statues: one of a bear, the other of a huntsman taking aim with a bow and arrow.
"But the problem is not that we have too many bears, it is that we have too many people." Forbidden to shoot the bears, Brasov's city fathers last week tried something else - feeding them.
Teams of hunters spread meat and molasses along a deep valley far from the town, hoping to lure the animals away from built-up areas. But with the brown bear having a daily travelling range of 12 miles, they are sure to be back.
Romania has won permission for a limited cull next year, but the allowed number, 300, will barely keep the existing population stable.
A more radical solution is eco-tourism. To date, efforts to bring tourists to what is Europe's biggest wilderness have foundered for the very obvious reason that visitors have no wish to search for animals that may decide to eat them.
Instead, the World Wildlife Fund wants to build visitor centres on platforms high above the forest from which tourists might watch the wolves, bears and lynx without becoming their lunch.
The money generated would, the fund hopes, allow impoverished Romania to begin sensible forest management.
"People are very interested in bears, if we can educate them we can raise awareness,"said Razvan Cernucan, a scientist with the project.
But this remains a plan for the future. For now, the people of Brasov can do little more than bolt their doors and windows and wait for the first signs of the winter snows - the signal for the bears to retreat to their winter lairs and for life here to return to normal.