An injured bear cub rescued from a Romanian river bed after becoming separated from its mother has found a new home – in a bear sanctuary.

Authorities were alerted on Sunday afternoon after a group of holidaymakers hiking in the mountains of Argeş County heard roars and groans coming from underneath a rock in a river bed. The Jandarmeria Montană (mountain police) sent out a team of rescuers. They discovered the distress signals were coming from a baby bear, probably only four months old, that had been separated from its mother. 

The rescuers carefully climbed down the rocky river bed and held the tiny creature by the back of its neck, as one would do with a cat. Cold and dehydrated, the cub had an injured right shoulder, as vets discovered upon examination. They also established that the cub is a female. 

After giving her the necessary emergency care, the vets took her 70 miles east to the Libearty Bear Sanctuary in Zărneşti. There, the experts fed her, treated her injury – and named her Kenya. She joins the rest of the bears living happily in the mountain retreat. 

Romania has the largest bear population in Europe, apart from Russia, with an estimated 7,000 of the animals. Some captive bears have been exploited as tourist attractions in restaurants or local zoos, sometimes kept in cages hardly large enough for them to stand up. Now, many of them live a much happier life in Zărneşti – and Kenya is the latest to join their number.