Max is a large male brown bear who was taken from the forest as a cub in 1997. He was used as a tourist attraction in the town of Sinaia, just south of Brasov in central Transylvania, where his owner would chain him to railings leading to the famous Peles Castle so tourists passing by would pay for a photograph next to the bear.
Max had suffered many years of ill-treatment before his rescue and when he was bought to the sanctuary in 2006 he was found to be blind. In 2008 a team of animal eye specialists visited the bear sanctuary to assess Max’s eyes but he had detached retinas in both eyes and his eyesight could not be improved. This was possibly due to trauma to the head as a cub.
Even though he was blind, Max was released into a small area of the forest sanctuary in 2008 and he uses his other senses of smell and hearing to get around the enclosure. He is now living a contented life in his own patch of forest, which has a water pool and a den and over an acre of trees and shrubs.
This is how he spends the last quiet years of his life, in the “Libearty” Bear Sanctuary.
