While driving in the Irkutsk region, Daria Tiourneva first saw “a dark spot” in a tree, before realizing that it was a bear cub.
“We stopped without turning off the engine,” she told AFP. “We said to ourselves that the mother could be nearby and that we would then have to move on very quickly.” His video, filmed a few weeks ago, made the rounds on social networks. It was also broadcast by Russian television channels to illustrate the proliferation of encounters between plantigrades and humans in the largest country on the planet.
But if this episode makes you smile, the outcome of such an encounter has turned tragic on numerous occasions.
According to a report from the RIA-Novosti press agency, at least 26 people have been killed by bears since the start of the year in Russia, including seven in the Krasnoyarsk region, a huge territory in Siberia whose surface area is more than four times that of mainland France.
It is in this region that a 39-year-old man, who worked as a lumberjack and kept equipment in a shed in the forest, was attacked by a bear in the middle of the night at the end of September. He died from his injuries.
On social networks, numerous videos show bears venturing up to the doors of houses in rural areas, or frolicking in the streets of Siberian villages.
Vladimir Odoulo, an angler from Russia's Far East, told local media how a female bear "rushed" at him "like a madwoman" on the banks of a river. He escaped after a melee with the animal, which left him with serious bruises on his head and legs.
If the number of attacks remains stable - between 20 and 30 per year according to the Russian Ministry of the Environment - the growing population of brown bears raises fears of more frequent incidents.
It has more than doubled in Russia since 1990, going from around 130,000 to around 307,900 individuals in 2026, according to the same ministry.
This increase creates “a shortage of food,” explains Gennady Krasnikov, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to RIA-Novosti.
“This pushes bears to seek new territories and expand their range,” says Mr. Krasnikov, also invoking “global warming” which “considerably modifies animal migrations.”
Russian environmental activists say wild animals are increasingly moving toward populated areas due to the destruction of forests by fires, logging and the construction of buildings that destroy their food base.
On the shores of Lake Baikal, in the Irkutsk region, Mikhail Strelkov, inspector for environmental protection, is full of praise. He claims that this is “the first time” that so many bears have been observed in the area entrusted to him.
“It’s a year of scarcity,” he explains to AFP. “In the forest, there are no pine nuts, the main food that the bear consumes to build up fat reserves before hibernating.” With his team, Mr. Strelkov monitors the presence of bears by recording their excrement and any other traces on the trails. If one ventures into a populated area or goes so far as to kill a human, the bear is hunted down and shot.
Faced with the risks, curfews have been established in certain municipalities and "groups of hunters have been formed to fight against aggressive animals", according to the state press agency Tass, which cites the figure of 3,440 "dangerous" bears killed since the start of the year.
