On Mount Ozren in Bosnia-Herzegovina, an unusual friendship has grown far beyond anything its beginning could have predicted.
Masa, a 150-kilogram bear, slowly makes her way across a grassy enclosure before standing on her hind legs and reaching her enormous paws toward Petar Tubic.
Then she hugs him.
It is a remarkable sight — especially considering that when Tubic first met Masa in 2019, she was a helpless bear cub weighing only about 2 kilograms.
Tubic discovered the abandoned cub alone in the forest. Without her mother, the tiny bear was unlikely to survive on her own, so he brought her home and began caring for her.
He fed her milk and fruit and helped her regain her strength.
What began as an unexpected rescue eventually changed the course of Tubic’s life.
“I knew almost nothing about taking care of a bear,” he recalled. But over the years, Masa became a permanent part of his world.
She wasn’t the only bear to find a home with him. Tubic later took in another female bear, Ljubica, and the two now live on his property on Mount Ozren.
Masa has grown dramatically since those early days.
She now weighs around 150 kilograms and could become even heavier during the winter. Yet despite her enormous size, she apparently hasn’t forgotten her childhood habit of climbing onto Tubic’s lap.
The problem is that sitting on someone’s lap is considerably different when you’re a 150-kilogram bear.
Playtime can occasionally leave Tubic with a few bruises or a damaged hoodie. Although Masa may not intend to hurt him, her strength is impossible to ignore.
A single playful swipe from her paw could seriously injure a person.
Despite that danger, the bond between them remains strong.
Masa and Ljubica have also transformed Tubic’s home into something of a local attraction. Visitors travel to Mount Ozren to see the bears and the other rescued animals living on the property.
Tubic cares for an unusually large collection of animals, including two wolves, deer, raccoons and many others.
He rejects the idea that the animals are simply his pets.
Instead, he says the relationship works in both directions.
People may believe he is taking care of the animals, but Tubic sees himself as something closer to their companion — or even their pet.
“They shaped my life, and I shaped theirs in some way,” he said.
Tubic lives there with his wife, Milica, and their 9-year-old daughter, Eva. Although he works professionally as an electrician, his interests outside work include hiking, caving and paragliding.
Still, animals have become the family’s greatest source of joy.
At one point, Tubic considered whether Masa and Ljubica could eventually return to the wild. But years of living alongside humans have made that possibility complicated.
The bears have become accustomed to people, and Tubic fears that releasing them could leave them unable to cope safely in the wild.
For now, they will remain on Mount Ozren.
And Tubic’s fascination with bears shows no sign of fading.
He says caring for them has given him access to a side of life that he had previously overlooked — something increasingly valuable in a world where people spend so much of their time looking at screens.
The bears, he believes, introduced him to a world he didn’t know existed.
And in the process of learning how to care for them, he feels that he and the animals have learned from one another.
In a sense, their relationship has been an education for both sides.
From a tiny abandoned cub weighing just 2 kilograms to a giant bear who still tries to climb into his rescuer’s lap, Masa’s story is a reminder that sometimes a single act of compassion can completely change two lives.