Masa weighed just 4.4 pounds when Tubic found her. Alone in the mountains, without her mother, she likely would not have survived. Tubic cared for the cub, feeding her milk and fruit until she regained her strength.<\/p>\n
Finding Masa sent Tubic\u2019s life in an unexpected direction, making him care for an animal he knew almost nothing about, he recalled. He has since adopted another female bear, named Ljubica, who also lives on the property.<\/p>\n
Masa now weighs about 330 pounds and is expected to grow heavier in the coming winter months. Seemingly unaware of her size, she still routinely tries to sit on Tubic\u2019s lap as she did when she was a cub.<\/p>\n
Tubic said playtime with bears often comes with a few bruises or a torn hoodie despite their gentle intentions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a fact,\u201d he said. \u201cA push of her paw could knock someone out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thanks to Masa and Ljubica, Tubic\u2019s home on Mount Ozren has become a local tourist attraction where visitors come to see the bears and other rescued animals. Tubic also cares for two wolves, deer, raccoons and scores of other animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople often say that they are my pets, but I would turn that around and say I am more of a pet to them,\u201d he said. \u201cThey shaped my life, and I shaped theirs in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tubic lives with his wife, Milica Tubic, and 9-year-old daughter, Eva. An electrician by profession, Tubic also enjoys paragliding, caving, and hiking. But the family\u2019s main joy is spending time with animals.<\/p>\n
While he has considered returning the bears to the wild, Tubic is worried that they have grown too accustomed to people and that releasing them would put them in danger.<\/p>\n
So, at least for now, Masa and Ljubica remain with Tubic and his family. He said that his fascination with bears continues to this day, and offers a connection to what he described as the \u201creal world\u201d at a time when people spend much of their lives behind screens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [bears] opened a door to me to a world I didn\u2019t know existed, or maybe to the one I had never paid much attention to,\u201d he said, noting that the learning process worked both ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could say we\u2019ve been educated together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Masa weighed just 4.4 pounds when Tubic found her. Alone in the mountains, without her mother, she likely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1147,19122,793,374445,1068,79,201,965],"class_list":["post-893032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-bears","tag-general-news","tag-joy-wonder-discovery","tag-pets","tag-science","tag-wildlife","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}