Residents set up a watch every night trying to remove the large animals from their villages – Most of them are locked in their homes for more than 10 days
A preparedness plan with midnight patrols and honking has been drawn up by the residents of Taxiarchis, Halkidiki, in an attempt to repel from the village the bears that have disturbed the wider area with their frequent appearances, culminating in the freezing of work on the fir trees.
What worries the residents is that the bears seem to be making a whole… tour of the mountainous Halkidiki. As they say, they have left their traces and… their damage in at least 8 villages: Vrastama, Paleochora, Vavdos, Megali Panagia and Ierissos.
Horns honking in the evenings from the locals
“People are afraid, they have stopped work on the fir trees and on their fields,” says the olive producer and resident of the area Giorgos Gioroudis, underlining that the disasters are huge for the businessmen, who decided to take the situation into their own hands, in order to drive the bears out of the village. “Every night, there is a group that goes around in cars and honks making noise so that the bear doesn’t come,” he explains, adding that the entire village is terrified of a possible encounter. “Nobody has been out of the house for 10 days,” he pointed out.
In fact, the possible meeting with a bear “froze” the work of the first bee day to be visited, which welcomes people to its facilities in the abandoned Taxiarchis stone, until further notice. “We have frozen everything until we take measures to ensure the safety of our visitors”, explains the owner of the business, Athina Apostoloudi, underlining that “the aim is to reshape everyday life according to the existing data, learning how others operate, in areas that they have frequent appearances by bears.’
The bears became accustomed to human presence
The press representative of Akturos Panos Stefanos it reassures the inhabitants, speaking of one bear and not more. As he reports, this is a young male that started from Volvi and due to the breeding season, he covers long distances every day looking for a female bear but also for food, finding easy access to the bees of Halkidiki.
According to him, in recent years the bear population has increased due to all the protection measures. “The fencing of Egnatia Road had the effect of stopping accidents to a large extent”, he notes, and adds that “they gradually got used to the human presence, because humans are often in the mountains”.
Source: Skai
I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years, and my work has been featured on many different news websites. I am also an author, and my work has been published in several books. I specialize in opinion writing, and I often write about current events and controversial topics. I am a very well-rounded writer, and I have a lot of experience in different areas of journalism. I am a very hard worker, and I am always willing to put in the extra effort to get the job done.
