Simon Hunter
A taxi driver in the city of Ponferrada managed to capture an unusual sight in the early hours of Tuesday morning: an adult brown bear that was wandering around the streets.
In a video recorded by the cabbie and shared by the municipal police, the animal is seen running in front of the vehicle until it disappears down a flight of stairs. The taxi driver can be heard saying: “Look a bear!” and “What the hell…?”
According to the tweet shared by the police in Ponferrada, which is in the northern Castilla y León region, while the animals “get scared in the presence of humans”, people should be “very careful” if they come across one.
Once alerted to the bear, police patrol cars located the animal near the river in the city and guided it to nearby Pajariel Mountain.
It is very rare for brown bears to enter large cities such as Ponferrada in search of food, although they have been known to do so in smaller urban areas.
The authorities in Ponferrada said that no one should be alarmed by the sighting.
The brown bear is a protected species in Spain and is also being actively protected by the European Union.
Read more:
- How the brown bear has been brought back from the brink of extinction to thrive in Spain’s Pyrenees
- Swimming wild boar startles beachgoers on Spain’s Costa del Sol
