GRAEME HALEWOOD
Twenty-one years ago, on a beautiful autumn day, the heads of a mining company from Baia Mare came to the mountains to hunt, along with some colleagues from abroad. Those were the good times for mining companies—in the heart of the mountains, miners who lived in the area were busy drilling ores. The hunters returned to their cottage with a female bear as a trophy and two orphaned bear cubs. The female’s bearskin ended up beautifying a wall, and the cubs were locked up in a cage, to entertain the executives coming to party at the cottage. The bears grew up, but mining declined. The cottage remained in ruins, and the bear cubs were forgotten in their tiny cage. One day, because of the lack of food, the bears showed their teeth and claws. After the fight, Graeme had to carry on without his right eye.
Still, he had some luck. He was surrendered to the zoo in Baia Mare, where his eye was operated on. Several years spent behind bars at the zoo allowed the wound to heal. For years Graeme walked in circles in his tight cage, but even so, his fate was gentler than his brother’s, who died, probably due to lack of food. Eleven years ago, another cell-mate joined him—Halewood, a joyous, eternally Flemish bear. As apples fell from the trees near the cage, springs and summers passed untill liberation day—October 11th, 2013. It was the day when the Libearty team brought them to Zarnesti. AMP had tried for years to take over the bears, but zoo administrators had hopes of building a newer and larger zoo, so the bears remained.
It was a beautiful autumn day when the shelter hatch was raised, like the curtain before the final act—the liberation. After a few days of waiting following the neuter surgery, Graeme stepped out of his den, lured by the red apples thrown over the fence. After 21 years, his paws touched the grass again, leaving paw prints in the wet soil. He greeted Halewood, his ex-cellmate, with an intrigued grunt—had they died and gone to heaven? So they sat down together in a ditch, leaning on opposite sides, stretching their necks to watch the birds in the oak forest of the sanctuary.
