Snowfall in León brings unexpected visitor to village of Prioro
A local resident managed to photograph a bear cub that wandered up to his front door
The village of Prioro, in León, has seen plenty of snowfall during the recent snap of cold weather Spain has been suffering. But for resident Óscar Montero, the weather brought the biggest surprise of his life: when he looked out of his front door on Saturday, a bear cub was staring back at him from the snow-covered stairs.
“At first I wasn’t sure what kind of an animal it was,” Montero explains. “I thought it might have been a big dog, but when I looked closer I could see that it was a baby bear, and it was making its way up the stairs.
“At first I was tempted to go out and touch it, but I decided not to because I was warned that its mother might be nearby and that could be dangerous,” explains the 26-year-old.
He did, however, have time to take a photo of the bear cub, which appears in the snap up to its neck in snow, and he called a neighbor to explain what he was seeing.
Seeing the bear really made my day, given that we’ve been cut off for several days due to the snow”
“Just when I was going to record a video on my phone I opened the door to my house, and the animal turned and ran away,” Montero explains. He thinks that the animal may have gotten lost due to the heavy snowfall, and that it was most likely seeking food in the village.
“Whatever the case seeing the bear really made my day, given that we’ve been cut off for several days due to the snow and had no power for two and a half days,” he adds, explaining that this recent snowfall is the heaviest he has ever seen in the two years he has been living in the village.
Some of the older residents of the village were reminded by the appearance of the bear cub that “many years ago” a “very big bear” tried to get into the house of a terrified woman who lived in an isolated part of the village.
The photo taken by Montero spread on social networking sites like wildfire, something that has surprised him. “Media outlets have been calling me all day to interview me and ask permission to run the photo, which I am happy to let them do,” he says.
