Governor Vladimir Mazur instructed municipalities, together with the department of hunting and fisheries, to coordinate work with law enforcement agencies to ensure residents' safety. He also instructed the regional government to consider introducing a state of heightened readiness.
The restrictions apply to mass events, excursions, and tourist gatherings outside and on the outskirts of populated areas. The measures will remain in effect until at least November 1.
Mazur also urged residents to remember that “life is the most valuable thing there is” when they head into the forest for mushrooms and berries.
According to TASS, in the regions of Siberia and the Russian Far East, bears have killed 14 people in just the past few months. Attacks were recorded in nine regions, including Tomsk Oblast, the Altai Republic, Kemerovo, Novgorod, Irkutsk, and Amur oblasts, Buryatia, and Krasnoyarsk and Kamchatka krais.
The most high-profile incident occurred on August 19 near the village of Artybash in the Altai Republic: a bear attacked a tent with two tourists, dragged out a 29-year-old woman, killed her, and buried her in the forest. In Tomsk Oblast, the bodies of two men who were mauled by a bear were found on September 20: one was a farm worker who had gone looking for a missing cow, and the other was his fellow villager.
The Ministry of Natural Resources links bears' approaches to people with a shortage of food: according to ministry representative Tatyana Aramileva, there is almost no pine nuts, hazelnuts, berries, or mushrooms in Siberia this year. The ministry also noted that before winter hibernation bears need to gain weight, and when food is scarce they come out to roads and populated areas, where they are also attracted by dumps, open trash containers, and food waste near houses and tourist bases.
The Ministry of Natural Resources stated that in recent years there have been about 20–30 recorded cases of bears attacking people, while the anomalous spike was in 2014 — 166 cases. According to the ministry, in 2026 Russia had 307.9 thousand brown bears compared with 130 thousand in 1990.
Sources
