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Most people don’t need to be told it’s a bad idea to go out of your way to get up close and personal with a bear. However, there are also plenty who’ve learned a lesson the hard way, including one man who was injured after stopping to feed one on a road in Romania.
America’s national parks are filled with signs reminding visitors to keep their distance from any wild animals they might encounter inside their confines. Many of the people who come across those warnings may not need a reminder, but we tend to be treated to a steady stream of stories concerning their necessity due to morons who fail to heed them.
The United States is obviously not the only place where potential danger lurks in nature, and similar signs are posted around the world in regions that are home to a sizable population of animals that have the potential to do some damage if humans draw their ire.
That includes Romania, which is second only to Russia when it comes to the European countries with the highest number of bears. The Carpathian Mountains and the areas that surround them are the primary habitat for the estimated 13,000 brown bears that call it home, and as of last year, they’d killed 26 people and injured another 274 in attacks stretching back to 2005.
Now, we can add another tally to that second number due to a Bulgarian tourist who made a decision he ended up regretting.
A man suffered serious injuries to his arm after feeding a bear from a car in Romania
The Transfagarasan is an approximately 95-mile highway that winds through the southern Carpathians in Romania, and it is known for the scenery you get to soak in while weaving your way through the stretch known for its sharp turns and steep elevation changes.
It is also known as the “Bear Pass” due to how frequently those massive mammals are spotted on and around the road, which is dotted with signs that advise people not to feed any they may encounter. That includes the one that was ignored by an Italian tourist who was attacked right next to it and killed by one of those animals after getting off his motorcycle to try to get a photo with it last year.
According to Novinite, another man almost became a Darwin Award nominee on that same highway after stopping the car he was driving to try to feed a bear that was walking on the road with its cub.
The driver, a Bulgarian tourist identified as Georgi Bizhev, said he and a friend decided to do some bear-spotting in Romania after heading to Hungary to watch the Champions League final in Budapest, and he captured the moment the bear lunged at him through the window of his car (someone in the vehicle behind also filmed the incident from another angle).
— Dave (@realbigguydave) June 1, 2026
Bizhev said the bear bit down on the hand he raised to defend himself after it lunged at him, noting, “It tried to grab me and pull me out of the car.” He also acknowledged he made a poor decision by feeding it despite asserting it’s fairly common behavior for tourists on the road, adding, “I entered its environment. It was a mistake for which I paid.”
People can be fined between 10,000 and 30,000 lei (~$2,200 to ~$6,630) for feeding bears in Romania, but it’s currently unclear if he’s facing any additional punishment aside from the physical one he endured.