BEARS IN KUTEREVO

The Kuterevo Bear Refuge was founded in 2002 and ever since then bears are the main attraction in the village.

Right now, the refuge hosts 8 bears, 2 of which are coming from a Zoo and the rest lost their mothers during their first year of life and thus had no chance of survival in the wild.

The Refuge is separated in two parts – the first one is dedicated for the younger bears and the second for the older ones. In this moment we have three bears in the first part – Marko Kralj, born in 2012; and Mlada Gora and Mlad Dol, both born in 2010. And in the second part we have five bears in total: VladMir, born in 2008; BlagoZoo, born in 2007, coming from the Zoo in Zagreb; LjuboLik and ZdraviGor, both born in 2003. All of these males share one enclosure, and the Lady of the Refuge – Mirna, lives in another enclosure all by herself. She spent almost all her live in the Zoo in Split, but joined Kuterevo in April 2015. Being born in 1984, she is now almost blind and deaf and she is the oldest bear in the Refuge.

BEARS IN CROATIA

In Croatia live around 1000 bears in the wild. The bears living in Croatia are part from the Dinaric population, where around 2800 bears live. This is the second largest population in Central Europe.

The colour of the bear pelt can vary from light grey to black, even so the hair mostly has a black colour, and therefore the brown bear has his name, in Croatian «smeđi medvjed». The male bears, living in Croatia have a weight on the average from 150kg, the females 100kg.

The bear is biologically classified as a rare species. The limited size of the available habit and the large space the bears require, prevent any significant further growth of the bear population.

You can find more information in the Brown Bear Management Plan of The Republic of Croatia.