Estonia authorizes shooting of human-habituated bears threatening village residents

Estonia's Environmental Board issued an emergency permit on Thursday to shoot two bears born last year after they repeatedly entered residential yards in the village of Vöõbu, Järva County, despite efforts to chase them back into the forest.

Three bear cubs first appeared in a village yard about ten days ago. Resident Liisa Hendrikson, who encountered the cubs on her property, said it was clear they were not afraid of people and seemed to be seeking contact instead. The animals showed no fear even of the noise the Environmental Board had recommended using to scare them off — Hendrikson shouted directly at them from about three metres and banged pieces of firewood together, but the cubs barely reacted. Rescuers managed to catch and remove one cub that time, while the other two sat in a tree for hours before leaving at dusk.

On Thursday afternoon the cubs settled into the yard of another house in the same village. Rescuers tried to drive them off with a siren, but the animals only climbed down from a birch tree once they were sprayed with water — repeatedly, since they kept returning to the yard after heading into the forest. Since catching the animals proved impossible, the Environmental Board urgently issued a permit allowing them to be shot.

According to Tanel Türna, head of the Environmental Board's game management department, if the bears had returned at night and tried to break into a barn or a home, or encountered a lone person in the dark, there would have been a real risk of a serious conflict. Although the bears are young, each weighs around 70 kilograms and is very strong. The animals were not caught on Thursday, but the shooting permit remains valid. Türna said the bears had been offered to a zoo and to animal parks, but no one was willing to take them in.

Why the bears lost their fear of humans

Bear researcher Mati Kaal said the permit was an unavoidable decision, since animals accustomed to humans can practically never be retrained into wary wild animals. He explained that such bears seek out yards because they have grown used to getting food from people — either through deliberate feeding or, for instance, someone last year dumping rotten apples and other food waste at the forest edge. As a result, the animals learned that people and human settlements are an easy source of food. An RMK campsite and hiking trail near Vöõbu, Kaal noted, could be part of why the bears began associating humans with food.

For bears as young as this trio — about a year and a half old — waving a broom might help scare them off, but an adult bear cannot be chased away so easily, Kaal said, calling bears stubborn animals with immense strength.