‘There was a bear in my midst. And if its bowel movement was anything to go by, it was a big one’: I biked through the bear capital of Europe

Steve Shrubsall rides away from a brown bear.

After years of speculation, I can finally provide a definitive answer to one of humanity's oldest questions: bears do indeed shit in the woods.

I was – against my better judgement – alone under dense canopy cover in the Carpathian Mountains, just south of the city of Brasov in Romania. The range yawns some 1,500 kilometres across Eastern Europe – from Ukraine to Czechia – and is home to Europe’s highest density of brown bears, wolves and lynx.