Is it true that the bear population in Russia has more than doubled and now exceeds 300,000 individuals?

We continue to examine the issue of bears in Russia. In an earlier article, I cited comments from scientists and experts stating that the actual number of bears in the country is unknown and largely speculative. This is the opinion of specialists who study bears in the wild.

Today, I want to discuss another aspect of population numbers. Currently, statistical data is being used to justify the need to hunt bears throughout the winter while they hibernate, and to remove limits on their hunting, claiming that the population has supposedly more than doubled in recent decades.

On September 30, 2026, authorities publicly stated that there are now over 300,000 bears, compared to 130,000 in 1990. This suggests that their numbers have exploded and there is nowhere to accommodate them.

Let's examine this issue based on real data.

Taking the current figure of 307,900 bears in 2026 and comparing it to 130,000 in 1990, we see an increase of 2.37 times, or +136.8%.

This seems reasonable if we trust our bureaucrats. Authorities claim that in the vast Soviet Union, there were half as many bears as in modern Russia.

However, let's refer to real scientific work from those years. Notably, a fundamental and extensive study titled “Some Comments on Different Methods of Counting Brown Bear, L., 1758, Populations Used in the Former USSR” by Igor Chestin from the Department of Vertebrate Zoology and General Ecology at Moscow State University.

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The study, published in 1994, provides data from the early 1990s. Chestin analyzes the methods used to count brown bears across the former USSR, including European Russia, the Caucasus, Altai, Sayan, Krasnoyarsk, the Far East, Kamchatka, Chukotka, and other regions.

He categorizes the methods into local (for reserves and specific hunting grounds) and large-scale — for regions, republics, and ultimately national estimates. This research is crucial because it examines the methodological reliability of the numbers that formed the basis for bear population estimates in Russia and the USSR.

Our officials also reference Chestin's work in their assessments.

Now, let's look at the study itself, which states: “there is still no single standard method for counting bears.” The scientist explicitly states that no standard method for counting bears exists.

Further: “Counting is usually conducted over a small area with subsequent extrapolation to the entire habitat area” — confirming that researchers DID NOT COUNT BEARS ACROSS THE ENTIRE TERRITORY. They surveyed selected areas and then extrapolated the results to larger territories. This is GUESSWORK, NOT A RELIABLE POPULATION COUNT.

This is confirmed by the following phrase: “In almost all cases, such zones are determined arbitrarily, which is likely a weak point in the population estimation process.” Here, the scientist acknowledges methodological issues: the number obtained in one area was applied to a chosen area, with homogeneous zone boundaries determined arbitrarily.

The study further confirms this, quoting: “The first category of local methods seems unsuitable for counting bears, and these methods have no value as a standard methodology for the country.”

This indicates that data obtained from concentrations of animals at feeding sites, spawning rivers, slopes, etc., cannot be simply turned into a reliable national population count.

He continues in English: “it is fairly difficult assessing what kind of information it provides” and questions: “is it providing an accurate trend in bear numbers or just monitoring relative attractiveness of the site as bear habitat?”

This roughly translates to: “it is difficult to determine what information such counting provides: does it reflect actual bear population dynamics or just the relative attractiveness of the site for bears?”

Simply put, changes in the number of observed animals might indicate not a change in population, but a change in feeding conditions and animal movements.

The next phrase: “Counting brown bears on routes to winter dens is also unreliable” — refers to bears entering dens before snow falls, thus being excluded from counts, and migration can occur within days. Naturally, these animals are missed in any count or assessment.

Further: “Extrapolating data collected on migration routes can cause additional errors, as it is unclear from what area bears come to a specific place” — literally stating that local observations cannot be turned into an exact number of animals over a vast area. Remember, we are talking about the vast Soviet Union and modern Russia.

Chestin confirms that large-scale methods are not counts but estimates. The phrase is: “Strictly speaking, these are estimation methods, not counting methods.” 

So when an official tells us that the population was such and such, historically, these figures were merely estimates, not the result of direct animal counts.

It is worth mentioning that, essentially, THERE WAS NO METHOD FOR COUNTING BEARS IN THOSE YEARS. The study cited by officials explicitly refutes this, and the study itself discusses the reliability of methodologies.

For example, Chestin writes in his work: “The first attempt to estimate the brown bear population across the country was made by Vereshchagin (1972), who used records from offices purchasing bear skins from hunters.”

In the 1970s, there was no population estimate, and bears were counted based on bear skin purchases. Partial estimates were also made through surveys of foresters and hunters. That was the entire statistic.

Moreover, Chestin notes discrepancies in data from the State Hunting Register: “The origin of these data varied between administrative units: it could be either an expert assessment by hunting management workers or an extrapolation of actual count results.”

This is extremely important. It turns out that the national figure was essentially composed of different values. Some were expert assessments, some surveys, some extrapolations, and local counts. Then they were combined. THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS CONDUCTING A UNIFIED STANDARDIZED NATIONAL COUNT OF BEARS IN RUSSIA.

Thus, there is no real confirmation that there were 130,000 bears in the 1990s. Counting methods were just emerging, they were varied and questionable, as confirmed by the same studies officials now cite.

In 1997, Igor Chestin released another work, indicating that based on literary sources and postal surveys of hunters, the bear population was approximately 130,000 individuals. Not a proven population, but based on all distorted and fragmented data available.

Let's continue.

In 2010, the state estimate showed about 182,000–183,000 animals, a time when methods improved, natural territories were more developed, and humans penetrated deeper into the taiga. But even here, data varied: one section of the Ministry of Natural Resources indicated 181,900 individuals, while the state register summary reported 183,000 brown bears. The state report itself states: “based on the results of counts, the stock of this species is estimated.” So even by official terminology, this is an approximate resource estimate, not an exact count of all animals.

In 2012, the Ministry of Natural Resources acknowledged the problem and confirmed the need for proper monitoring, stating in a report: “To obtain reliable information on the number of game animals in Russia, a comprehensive state monitoring program is necessary.”

In the same year, scientists attempted to count the population in a local area. Nearly two decades after Chestin, authors compared Russian practices with modern genetic methods. Both Russian and international specialists participated in the study titled “Non-invasive genetic sampling of brown bears and Asiatic black bears in the Russian Far East: A pilot study.” They studied bear populations in the Far East, locally.

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Quoting:

“Unfortunately, reliable and consistent population estimates that could be used for assessing and monitoring the status of both bear species are generally lacking” — indicating that no reliable population status estimates exist for brown and black bears in Russia.

“Methods for estimating bear distribution and numbers in Russia were based on expert knowledge, winter route/track surveys, and visual observations.”

“Despite the widespread use of these methods, they are considered less rigorous than modern capture-recapture and DNA-based methods used in other countries.”

“There has been little progress in estimating these populations, and these estimates cannot be relied upon to reflect actual population processes.”

Simply put, any counts are superficial, the data cannot be relied upon, they are unreliable. I remind you, this concerns the Far East in 2012, twenty years after Chestin's work, which officials cite regarding bear numbers from those years.

Authors in their work cite a study where “the population estimate for one year in a three-year study was biased by more than 200%.”

Again, very simple: the cause was not a population collapse or explosion, but a poor food harvest, causing bears to move over long distances. So if you see a different number of tracks or animals, it does not indicate a population explosion, as officials portray, but points to problems in their habitat. In such cases, spatial distribution, food base, movement distances, detection probability, seasonal animal concentration, etc., change.

And estimation errors ONLY DUE TO THIS in the authors' example exceeded 200%. Hypothetically, you have 100,000 bears, but you add another 200,000 on top and assume the population suddenly became 300,000 individuals just because the spatial distribution of the population changed.

Most interestingly, scientists who conducted DNA-based population estimates on a limited area and studied this problem thoroughly and deeply, quote:

“Regional wildlife management authorities currently lack the resources for systematic population surveys.”

The material is already extensive, but I think the problem needs to be fully disclosed. Otherwise, people will never learn about it on a large scale.

Let's move to 2015–2017.

State figures begin to contradict each other, with a discrepancy of 102,000 bears.

The Ministry of Natural Resources stated that by 2017, there were 245,100 bears, while the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation claimed that if there were 225,100 in 2015, by 2017, only 143,000 bears remained due to total extermination. The difference with the Ministry of Natural Resources data is 102,100 bears, or the Ministry's estimate is 71.4% higher than the Prosecutor's figure.

It is impossible to have both 143,000 and 245,000 animals in one country in one year and consider both figures as accurate population counts. This already indicates that within federal agencies, no one seems to understand the actual bear population numbers.

From 2015 to 2020, scientific literature links part of the “growth” depicted by Ministry of Natural Resources officials to changes in methods. Studies state: “Officially reported population figures should be treated with caution.”

These are the conclusions of scientists, experts, not my whim. Scientists say official figures should be treated with caution.

Here's why.

In 2017, during the scandal over figures from the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Natural Resources regarding bear numbers, a scientific paper by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which unites states, scientific institutions, and conservation organizations, stated that in Russia, according to their data, the bear population was only about 100,000 individuals.

Note:

The Ministry of Natural Resources reports a population of 245,000.

The Prosecutor's Office states that total extermination has been recorded, and the population is now only 143,000 individuals, even requesting that bears be included in Russia's Red Book.

Meanwhile, international scientific papers provide data on approximately 100,000 individuals nationwide. It is worth noting that in those years, many organizations were not banned, and extensive independent monitoring work was conducted openly in the country. Fires, deforestation, and verification with global databases on wild animal populations were identified.

In 2021, the Federal Center for the Development of Hunting Management (note the name of the structure) announced a population of 300,147 bears.

This figure was immediately “challenged” by bear expert Mikhail Krechmar at the Russian Geographical Society. He noted that such results should be considered with at least a 20–25% margin of error, as there is still no unified methodology for Russia.

Note: from the 1990s data, which reported no real bear population count or methods, to 2021, when experts confirm that no one is still reliably counting bears.

Estimating a 25% margin of error is easy, hypothetically subtracting 75,000 bears immediately. Quite a “miscalculation,” isn't it? The range of uncertainty is comparable to entire decades of claimed growth.

In the following year, 2022, researchers stated they could not verify the accuracy of the estimates. Scientists worked with official data from the “Centrohotkontrol” and regional authorities.

The study is titled “Brown bear-caused human injuries and fatalities in Russia are linked to human encroachment”, a high-quality work by Russian scientists. It covers all of Russia, divided into European Russia, Siberia, and the Far East, and analyzes the period from 2001 to 2018.

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Scientists studied officials' data on animal numbers. The conclusions are straightforward, quoting:

“We could not verify the accuracy of these estimates.”

In the same study, scientists examined bear attacks on humans and concluded that the increase in attacks IS NOT RELATED TO POPULATION GROWTH.

Explicitly:

“In Siberia, the number of victims was not related to the number of bears.”

Instead, they indicated it was related to road density and the presence of cedar forests, where both people and bears concentrate due to food resources.

Note again, this is not a journalist's comment or even my personal opinion, but direct statements from scientists. They also analyzed road density, compared attacks, injury and death growth, overlaid it on a model, and proved a specific statistical result.

The study itself translates as “Human injuries and fatalities caused by brown bears in Russia are linked to human encroachment into natural territories.”

Further quotes:

“Our study shows a link between habitat degradation and human-wildlife conflict.”

“Our study also revealed a consistent link between habitat degradation … and traumatic encounters between large predators and humans.”

“Increased road density increases human access to remote areas and causes forest fragmentation — a critical factor in human-wildlife conflicts.”

“The ultimate cause of predator population decline, including bears, is human persecution.”

Scientists also propose NOT INCREASING ANIMAL SHOOTING to solve the problem, but “Reducing human access to areas where resources are used by both bears and humans, including, where possible, closing or eliminating relevant dirt roads.”

For those blaming bears, scientists checked 310 registered victims from 2001–2018. Statistics show: 22% were gathering wild plants, 17% were hiking, 13% were working outdoors, 10% were fishing, and another 10% were hunting. Only 16% of attacks occurred in populated areas. Thus, almost all cases resulted from spatial overlap between humans and bears, not “fearsome beasts coming to devour us in towns and villages.”

This is the study.

In 2022, Russian scientist Puchkovsky from Udmurt State University published a work titled “Sources of Growth in Brown Bear Population Numbers in Russia.” Quoting: “Probably, its figures in federal information sources, based on expert assessments, are somewhat overestimated.”

Again, it's simple: the bear population in the country is a subjective expert opinion, not a real count, and the data is likely overestimated.

In the same year, brown bear specialist Sergey Pazhetnov, when asked about the current population in Russia, replied: “Probably about 120–130 thousand.” So another expert suggests that in 2022, the bear population in the country was only about 120–130 thousand individuals.

In the following year, 2023, a modern Russian scientific work calls track-based counting subjective. Quoting: “For this reason, track-based counting is subjective in principle.” Interestingly, leading scientist Ogurtsov cites an earlier conclusion by Yu. P. Gubary that bear counts are labor-intensive, varied, applied loosely, and at the initial stage often “barely differ from opinion.”

In 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources itself acknowledges a fundamental counting problem. In its justification, it states:

“As a hibernating animal, the bear is not recorded by Russia's main counting method, ZMU <…> this creates significant difficulties in estimating its population size.”

They also refer to scientist V. S. Pazhetnov, who acknowledges that “this count cannot reflect reliable population figures.”

Thus, even the agency itself officially recognizes serious problems in counting and estimating the bear population in Russia.

Now we come to the main point — our 2026. Suddenly, the Ministry of Natural Resources announces that the bear population is now 307,900 individuals and has doubled since the 1990s, when there were supposedly only 130,000 bears.

But there is no reliable data that the actual biological bear population in Russia is such a number. On the contrary, all scientific data, expert assessments, scientists, and even official statements indicate otherwise.

Yet, this is precisely what justifies the need to hunt bears throughout the winter in dens. This year, quotas were signed to shoot over 52,000 bears nationwide, and discussions are underway to consider removing any limits on “harvesting.”

© PAVEL PASHKOV