Hungry bears threaten Turkey's villages
Starving bears have been ravaging cemeteries in Turkey, digging up and devouring the dead and forcing villagers to place barbed wire around tombs.
In the mountains of Turkey’s Black Sea region, a favorite destination for trekkers and photographers, something is going on with the bears. These beasts, which normally forage on agricultural fields, orchards and beehives, have been marauding through cemeteries, digging up and devouring the bodies of the dead.
During a trip to the region last year, Al-Monitor spoke to locals in the picturesque Camlihemsin area who described how the bears had become a natural disaster like the frequent landslides of the uplands. The bears suddenly appear, take whatever they want and disappear before anyone can react.
Mahmut Turut from Pokut Highland described how a bear pushed his cow off a cliff and then descended to devour it. In the Gito Highland, two women, Ayse and her mother, Feride, have also had run-ins with bears.
