To mark World Animal Day, celebrated each year on October 4th, AMP held the first-ever national acorn harvest competition, Ghinderiada 2013, on Saturday, October 5th. The event took place at the Libearty Bear Sanctuary in Zărnești, with more than 70 children between the ages of seven and 14 participating.
The Acorn Race lasted two hours, during which teams collected 100 kg of acorns that had fallen in places where the bears can’t get to them. If these acorns weren’t gathered, they would rot, leaving a sizeable deficit in the bears’ inventory . At the end of the race, the kids’ hard work was rewarded with prizes from our partner for the event, Decathlon. The best gift, though, was a beautiful autumn day spent in the company of curious bears and the honor of personally throwing acorns to the 77 bears inside the enclosures.
The competition also served to educate people about the consequences of buying berries that are collected from forests and sold at roadside stands or in other countries, since it means taking food from the bears’ natural territories.Berry pickers compete with bears, and the bears remain hungry—no wonder they wreak havoc in orchards, beehives,and even households.
