![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_Female-Alaska-Peninsula-brown-bear-Ursus-arctos-horribilis-in-Katmai-National-Park-and-Preserve-A..jpeg\")
The woman said she came face-to-face with a brown bear in Germany (file photo)(Image: Getty Images\/Cavan Images RF)<\/p>\nThe woman was on a solo hike in the Chiemgau Alps, Germany when she was confronted by a brown bear – despite there being no breeding population in the area for nearly two centuries<\/p>\n
Benedict Tetzlaff-Deas News Reporter<\/p>\n
14:04, 21 Nov 2025Updated 14:06, 21 Nov 2025<\/p>\n
The woman said she came face-to-face with a brown bear in Germany (file photo)(Image: Getty Images\/Cavan Images RF)<\/p>\n
A woman has described the terrifying moment she came face-to-face with a bear <\/a>while out on a hike – despite being in an area with no breeding population in over 175 years.<\/p>\n The hiker was out on a solo walk in the Chiemgau Alps<\/a>, Germany <\/a>when she was confronted by the deadly animal<\/a> in broad daylight.<\/p>\n On the day of the unnerving encounter, the woman – who has not been named – said she noticed an unusual noise in the near distance, before hearing a panicked squawk from a crow. She then turned around to find an adult brown bear standing upright, looking directly at her.<\/p>\n She told Radio Charivari: “A crow squawked really loudly, and then I looked around and saw a bear standing upright about 200 metres away. And then I ran.”<\/p>\n “At that moment, I really only had this urge to flee”, she said, adding that she did not stop to take a photo.<\/p>\n Brown bears have been making a comeback in the Alps over recent years following centuries of declining numbers. Breeding populations are largely centred around the Central Alps in Italy, as the border with Austria and Slovenia.<\/p>\n Others are believed to roam across from the established Dinaric-Balkan population in the Balkans, which numbers around approximately 4,000 bears.<\/p>\n But sightings as far north as the Chiemgau Alps are much rarer, with no evidence of any breeding population in the area since at least 1835.<\/p>\n In 2006, ‘Bruno the bear’ became a sensation in Germany after spending seven weeks roaming the Bavarian countryside, with multiple attempts to stun and capture him proving unsuccessful.<\/p>\n He was eventually shot in a field near the town of Zell in southern Germany after authorities gave permission for him to be destroyed for reasons of public safety.<\/p>\n There have been no sightings of wild bears in Britain in nearly 600 years, with the last one recorded in the 1430s in Scotland<\/a> and the 1240s in England.<\/p>\n But in other parts of the world<\/a>, bear attacks pose a very real threat, especially in rural areas where human settlements and bear habitats overlap. Only yesterday, 11 people were injured and two left fighting for their lives <\/a>after a grizzly bear attacked a group of primary school children and teachers in Bella Coola, British Columbia, Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n One mum, Veronica Schooner, said her 10-year-old son Alvarez was in the Year 4-5 class that was attacked while on a walk and was so close to the animal “he even felt its fur.” Reports said a male teacher bravely tried to stop the bear but suffered serious injuries, and was taken away in an ambulance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman was on a solo hike in the Chiemgau Alps, Germany when she was confronted by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4665,145,90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-276245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-germany","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Germany's\u00a0Chiemgau](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_Wetterstein-Mountains-View-From-UNESCO-World-Heritage-Site-Kings-House-On-Schachen.jpg\")
Germany’s\u00a0Chiemgau Alps has not had a breeding population of bears since the 1830s(Image: NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n