Bears are increasingly coming out of the wild and approaching people: from Russia to the United States

A huge number of reports are coming in about bears leaving the wild and approaching people, which has already led to mass shootings and calls to increase quotas for further killing. After the first conflicts with people, there have also been fatalities, meaning that real attacks by wild animals on humans are being recorded. And this is making the situation worse: lobbyists for recreational sport hunting are literally rejoicing, saying: “See, we told you there were far too many bears.”

Now, about what is really happening! Attention!

First.

According to scientists and leading experts in our country, there is simply no reliable data on the actual number of bears. Moreover, it is precisely indiscriminate shootings that make the situation worse and provoke even more bears to come into areas inhabited by people!

Second.

It has already been confirmed, including by regional authorities, that there is a sharp decline in the natural food supply — bears literally have nothing to eat. And something completely similar is happening right now in the United States: exactly the same situation, with direct confirmation that bears are coming out because of hunger and searching for food.

Third.

At the same time, pressure on nature is increasing, and large-scale “development” is now beginning even in protected areas for resource extraction, logging and the construction of resorts. In other words, animals are being deprived of biological refuges, which means that THE PROBLEM OF PREDATORS COMING INTO HUMAN AREAS, CONFLICTS WITH PEOPLE, AND THE LACK OF A NATURAL FOOD SUPPLY — WILL CONTINUE.

Fourth.

Primitive indiscriminate shooting will not solve the problem: other animals will simply take the place of those that are killed. The root causes of what is happening must be addressed, and scientists and experts are saying exactly this. These are not simply assumptions — these are THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY OF OUR COUNTRY, if we are talking about Russia. And the conclusions of American scientists, for example, also fully confirm this in the context of bears leaving the wild and entering human areas in the United States.

Now to what is actually happening on a larger scale! The problem is real and serious. I will give a brief chronology of events from recent days:

• In Khabarovsk Krai, by the beginning of August, the regional hunting management authority reported six conflict incidents in just one week: bears entered private properties and approached human dwellings.

  
  

• Sakhalin Region, August 7: a bear appeared on the streets of the urban-type settlement of Smirnykh, rummaged through garbage and then left.

  
  

• Altai Republic, August 19: a bear attacked a tent, pulled a woman out of it and fatally injured her. After that, the authorities shot numerous bears in the region, patrols were introduced and movement was restricted. It is important to understand that a BEAR WARNING had previously been issued, but it was ignored by tourists.

  
  

• On August 23 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a bear emerged from an abandoned building near a residential house, ended up on a city road and was shot.

  
  

• In Kemerovo Region, the authorities shot around 35 bears, reporting that the animals had been leaving the wild and approaching people.

  
  

• In the area of Podtyosovo in the Yeniseysky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, on September 2 the bodies of two missing women were found with characteristic signs of a bear attack. Specialists immediately confirmed that by the end of August the area affected by forest fires had exceeded 1.43 million hectares, the natural food supply was depleted, the animals had nothing to eat and were approaching people in search of food.

  
  

• In Irkutsk Region on September 4, in the area of Bolshoye Goloustnoye and the Baikal region, due to bears appearing near settlements during the daytime and cases of attacks on livestock, the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Zapovednoye Pribaikalye” closed a number of routes along the Great Baikal Trail. It is important to understand that a bill allowing extensive logging around Lake Baikal and the reallocation of land for large-scale tourism clusters was recently pushed through — they plan to bring millions of tourists there, which means that IN THE COMING YEARS, CONFLICTS WITH BEARS IN THE LAKE BAIKAL REGION WILL INEVITABLY INCREASE.

  
  

• In the Zakamensky District of the Republic of Buryatia, on September 7, a 56-year-old man died after a bear attack. Denis Krylov, head of a department at Buryatprirodnadzor, reported a decline in the 2026 harvest of pine nuts and berries and a shortage of natural food for wild animals.

  
  
• In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on September 8, a bear appeared near School No. 24 and a kindergarten. Children were released only to adults, and the animal itself was soon killed.

These are the events! At the same time, a shortage of the natural food supply has been confirmed at least in Kuzbass, Buryatia, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Kamchatka. I mean official confirmations. In response to bears approaching people, the authorities immediately announced large-scale shootings of animals — in Krasnoyarsk Krai, reports stated that 88 bears had been killed in just three days, and more than 180 animals since the beginning of September. And in the Altai Republic, after the August tragedy, 157 permits were issued, while I found data showing that by September 9 at least 55 bears had already been shot in the wild.

Now this is extremely important! Maximum attention here! I have written about this many times already, but because new people are reading this material, it is necessary to repeat and explain what is actually happening with bears:

Back in 2018, it was no longer environmentalists sounding the alarm, but THE SECURITY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES OF OUR COUNTRY. The Prosecutor General’s Office reported that the brown bear population had declined by 36% in just two years — from 225,000 in 2015 to 143,000 in 2017 — and proposed including the bear in the Red Data Book. At the same time, the FSB sought special legal status for brown and Asiatic black bears because of illegal killing and trafficking in their body parts. The FSB proposal aimed at combating trafficking was ultimately adopted by the government, but the main issue remained unresolved: hunting pressure did not decrease, while the Prosecutor General’s Office proposal concerning the Red Data Book did not receive support from the Ministry of Natural Resources.

What happened next was exactly the opposite. Every year, using our own resources, we maintain a registry of quotas issued for bear hunting and collect data from across the entire country! According to our data, the number of bears officially permitted to be killed increased from 24,405 in the 2019/2020 hunting season to 45,972 in 2025/2026 — an increase of almost 90%. In other words, after official statements about a sharp decline in the population, the authorities effectively permitted almost twice as many bears to be killed. And at the same time, official statistics suddenly began reporting around 300,000 bears. This creates a shocking inconsistency: 143,000 bears in 2017 and alarm from the Prosecutor General’s Office, then several years later around 300,000 bears — accompanied by ever-higher hunting quotas. Moreover, the Ministry of Natural Resources estimate is completely anomalous and does not fit even the basic laws of biology: bears are animals with a slow life cycle and simply cannot undergo such a “population explosion,” even under the most favorable estimates.

And most importantly: the actual number of bears in Russia is not reliably known. Specialists say directly that there has been no reliable comprehensive census for many years, while the existing figures are described as estimates and even “guesswork.” I wrote about this a few days ago in a separate article containing direct quotations from leading experts in the country.

So now bears really are approaching people, but in response they are simply being shot on a mass scale and in COMPLETELY DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBERS. And there are calls to INCREASE THE QUOTAS FOR SHOOTING THEM SEVERAL TIMES OVER. Right now, we are compiling an updated registry for the 2026/2027 hunting season to understand how many bear hunting quotas the authorities have issued across the country.

But the fact remains: this year, both Russia and the western United States are experiencing an increase in human–bear conflicts precisely because of pressure on ecosystems. The natural food supply is depleted, as confirmed by relevant experts, massive forest fires are occurring and, in addition, even the protection status of protected natural areas is being weakened. And this is happening both in the United States and in Russia.

In the United States, for example, there are now data from Colorado, Utah and New Mexico — scientists there report that warm spring weather, followed by severe freezes, extreme heat and drought, damaged berries, acorns and other vegetation that makes up around 90% of the black bear’s diet. By August 25, agencies had already responded to 168 bear-related incidents, compared with 83 during the entire year of 2025. Just consider the scale! And in Colorado, for example, the preliminary number of bear reports by the end of August had reached 8,672, compared with 3,680 a year earlier — approximately 135% more. A total of 294 bears were killed.

The problem is the same in Russia today as it is in the United States. And it is not being addressed in any way other than by simply shooting animals! Unfortunately, detailed scientific assessments exist only for the United States, because in our country such studies are not being conducted at all. Nevertheless, we can approximately rely on the same data, because all of these regions belong to the boreal belt of the Northern Hemisphere.

That is the situation!

I ask everyone to spread this information as widely as possible, while we are preparing an updated registry of bear hunting quotas for publication in order to understand the true scale of the problem. This is a major and difficult effort in the fight for Life!

© PAVEL PASHKOV