We are Niels, Tijs and Eva, 3 Belgian students, not scouts like everyone calls us ;), and we went to Kuterevo for an internship for school. We are students of the last year biotechnical sciences at the Landbouwschool in Geel. We lived here for 2 weeks together with the other volunteers, the nature and of course the bears.

Everyone here is very social and friendly. We`ve been warmly received by Helena, Ivan and the other volunteers. We felt immediatly welcome!

At the fisrt day we gave them our Belgian chocolates. They were very happy with the present and the box was soon empty.

Our daily activities were helping around the house like cutting wood, picking corn, packing bread, building a new accomodation for volunteers… But we worked the most with the BBG (Bear Botanical Garden), it`s a new project that has been started by Milo, Daniel and Max. They always made the preparations and put a lot of time in it. We helped with making the list of all the plants that grow in Velebit and are eaten by bears. After this we started with the practical side of the work like cutting wood for a fence. But besides this we also had enough time for our own studies for school.

For us the most exciting activity in our 2 weeks in Kuterevo was without doubt the bearspotting. Milo and Daniel took is with them for a 5 hour walk in the mountains. We searched for beartracks or even bears. But unfortunately we haven`t seen a bear, only some shit and digging tracks. Our trip through the the mountains was rather hard but definitely worth it. A trip to never forget!

But actually all the other things we’ve done were a lot of fun!

At the end of are internship we knew that 2 weeks as a volunteer in Kuterevo are too short to experience everything what happens there. So are solution is to come back in vacation next summerJ !!!

Many many greetings and hugs from Niels, Eva and Tijs (Your Belgian Scouts)