Elusive brown bear spotted on slopes of Swiss ski resort

It’s been a winter of unique occurrences in the mountains, from extreme weather closing resorts to record-breaking snow depths. Now it appears that the local wildlife want their moment in the spotlight as a rare sighting of a brown bear on the slopes of Swiss ski resort Engelberg has caused quite a stir with locals.

“The bear was about 100 yards away and stayed in the distance,” Peter Christen, a lift worker on the resort's Gerschnialp ski lift, told the regional Nidwaldner Zeitung newspaper.

“I was not afraid, but rather he was of us,” said Christen, who was collecting piste poles when the bear came out of the forest.

“My friends and colleagues did not believe it at first, everyone thought I was joking,” said Christen. While bears are quite common in North American ski resorts their presence in the Alps is a lot less likely, with very few known to be living in the mountains of France, Austria, Switzerland and Italy – some reports suggest the population is closed to extinct in parts.

Up until 2010 the WWF Austria worked on a project to bring back bears to Austria and the Alps, however the programme failed when the final bear, known as Moritz couldn’t be detected in 2011 – it’s thought one of the main reasons for this is poaching, as many bears on the programme went missing.

Ski springwatch: animals to spot on the slopes

The bear spotted last week ran across the slopes in the Gerschnialp area of Engelberg’s ski area, a popular spot for beginner skiers and snowboarders at the foot of the Titlis mountain, and back into the woods.

Local authorities believe the bear to be the same animal, known as M29, that was spotted last year in the Bern and Uri cantons (states) of Switzerland – last week it appeared to have moved into Susten Pass area which connects the two cantons. Before the sighting of M29 last year it had been 190 years since a wild bear was seen roaming in Switzerland.

It is suggested that the bear has been hibernating in a cave in the Susten area and is now foraging for food.

“Brown bears males have a grazing area of 130 to 1,600 square kilometers and can move hundreds of kilometers a day,” said Fabian Bieri, head of hunting and fishing in the region of Nidwalden, who has been tracking M29 since his appearance last week.

He predicts the bear to be roughly five years old and of little risk to the local populations due to his vegetarian diet. “Bears feed on three-quarters of vegetables, like leaves, nuts and berries,” Bieri told the Nidwaldner Zeitung.

“I would not advise the population to go looking for the bear. First, there is avalanche danger, and secondly, it’s best to leave a bear alone,” he continued.

M29 isn’t the first animal to catch us humans by surprise on the slopes, here are five other furry friends that have made headlines during recent winters.

Five more animals that caught skiers unaware

The moose who chased snowboarders in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

A moose on the loose caught snowboarder Scott Askins and his friend off guard when their run on the slopes of Jackson Hole turned into a game of cat and moose.

A rare lynx on the slopes at Christmas in Colorado

Skiers and snowboarders at Purgatory in Colorado were left particularly stunned when an elusive lynx, considered a threatened species, joined them on the slopes at Christmas last year.

A hoax or a bear who tried to catch a snowboarder in Japan

Snowboarder Kelly Murphy claims she was completely oblivious of the bear chasing her through powder in Japan – her video, uploaded to YouTube, caused a fierce debate over whether the footage was real or a hoax.

Candide Thovex and an angry cow in France

Even the King of the epic ski edit Candide Thovex can’t avoid the local wildlife sometimes – luckily for us his friend captured the moment he came face-to-face with some local cattle, while skiing through their field, on camera.

A mountain lion watching skiers in Utah

Utah is known for having a large cougar population but one skier was still surprised to find one at the side of the slopes at Deer Valley ski resort, however when the animal failed to move many believed it to be a taxidermied lion from one of the resorts private chalets, put out as a prank.