Brown bear watching holiday in Bulgaria

This tour is designed not only to promote the merits of the sustainable ecotourism in Bulgaria in general, but also to help the national action plan for this species, showing the local communities that if they can earn from a trophy hunter xxxx USD per bear shot, the same amount can be earned by the same bear for a couple of years from bear-watching tourists given the fact that the bears at the end remain not only alive, but also more in numbers.

During the trip clients receive a lot of practical information about the bears and their habits by one of the most knowledgeable men about bears in Bulgaria. Some tours are led by people who have been personally involved in the preparation of the brown bear action plan for Bulgaria.

Furthermore clients are given the opportunity to make use of local services like horseriding, wine tasting, buying local souvenirs, paying entrance fees for local sites of interest (monasteries, caves, museums etc.).

Despite the free choice of the program at some stages all clients are given preliminary talk on how to react in the woods and in the hides, which will not only enlarge their chance of spotting a bear but also reduces the impact on the wildlife in the area. Clothing is normally communicated prior departure as this is essential thing in regards to noise production in the hides or during the tracks.

The mountain lodge we use belongs to our local partners who take care of the bears and the rest of the animals in their region. Our clients are served dishes, prepared by local products from the cook in the lodge.

In order to minimize the impact on the environment and to keep the animals unbothered we require groups sizes of individuals up to 4 (rarely 5). This helps the group to be more flexible during the move stealthier in the woods during the tracking activities and also to utilize better the hides, which are designed to house up to 3 due to the same reasons. We strongly believe that keeping the group size smaller helps a lot the success rate of our tours and is one of the reasons why we encounter wolves with some smaller groups, which is considered even greater experience.

Some clients on this tour request a visit to the nearby park where bears who have been rescued from a life as dancing bears are protected and cared for. You can learn a lot about the gipsy bear dancing practices of the past and are able to donate money for the bears' well deserved prosperity for the rest of their lives.

We believe that what we have now as an environment is not a legacy from our ancestors but something we have borrowed from our children. We will do our best to preserve it and improve it as much as we can. We directly support nature conservation projects, donating money, or providing vehicles for different NGO actions like forestation activities, monitoring of waterfowl, winter counts, research projects on specific species/habitats etc. We provide local nature conservation NGOs with discounted prices on our rent a car services or hostel accommodations for their every day job, workshops, training etc. common initiatives.

We recycle paper and reuse paper in our office; all printer cartridges (incl. laser jets) are also subjects of regular recycling. An online version of our printed brochure is available for online viewing at the website, which reduces considerably our paper consumption in terms of print runs and mailing envelopes. We have also adopted a variety of energy efficiency measures at our offices like outer wall insulation, energy saving light bulbs etc. A bird feeder, supplied with huge amount of seeds, is always available by our office in severe winters.