Twelve-year-old Alessandro Franzoi kept his cool when he stumbled onto a massive brown bear while picnicking with his family, and walked away unscathed in a moment he’ll never forget.
“It was the best day of my life,” Franzoi told Italian daily La Stampa.
“I really hoped something like that would happen.
“When I saw the bear pop up from the bushes I was really excited.
“I knew I must not surprise the bear and that I just had to move away from it.”
The daring boy said he didn’t look the bear in the eyes, because he didn’t want the animal to see him as a threat.
The chilling encounter was caught on video and happened in the mountains near Sporminore in northern Italy.
“Keep coming, Ale, don’t turn your back on him,” the boy’s stepfather, Loris Calliari, can be heard saying.
“He’s just minding his own business.”
Alessandro said he had been reading about bears during the coronavirus lockdown, so he considered himself prepared.
Calliari told CNN that Alessandro loves animals, and in particular, bears, and when he saw the animal, he asked his stepfather to take a picture of him with the bear behind him.
About a month ago, they watched a YouTube video on what to do should they run into a bear, Calliari explained: “So, he was prepared.”
Since the early 1990s, the Life Ursus project has worked to reintroduce brown bears into the Trentino region after their population dwindled to just four in northern Italy.
Today, the population stands at around 50.
