Mild winters prevent bears from hibernating for long. Large numbers of beehives and silage bales have yet to be ravaged this year, but many beekeepers have given up on reporting bear damage due to the bureaucratic hassle involved in getting compensated.
Estonia’s brown bears have woken up from hibernation. They’ve already been spotted on trail cameras in multiple counties, and a map from the Estonian Hunters’ Society (EJS) shows they are on the move already across Estonia.
According to Tanel Turna, director of the Environmental Board’s Hunting and Aquatic Life Bureau, the bears are still groggy and looking for something to eat.
“Right now, they’re rifling through anthills, where they’ll find quite a bit of food,” Turna explained. “Then they discover hunters’ feeding stations, which serve as a valuable additional food source. They move and check out carcasses, for example.”
Since many people were also spending time out in nature, Turna warned that encounters were inevitable, so the possibility of crossing paths with a bear was something to remain aware of.
“There are more bears than usual, and more of them are roaming around,” he said. “And there are more people out and about as well. Encounters are inevitable. Bears will typically flee long before they even see a human being.”
For beekeepers, now is the time to switch on the electric fences surrounding their beehives.
According to the Environmental Board, bears this year have already destroyed silage bales in Laane County and five beehives in Jarva County.
Aleksander Kilk, vice chairman of the Estonian Beekeepers’ Association (EML), however, said that beekeepers were no longer reporting bear damage, because it had gotten more difficult to receive compensation for it from the Environmental Board.
“In the past couple of years, the situation has gotten more complicated,” Kilk noted.
“First, the claims process has gotten more complicated,” he explained. “Inspectors no longer come out in person; the beekeeper has to take photos themselves and send them in. And compensation isn’t paid out until the second quarter of the following year. Since the process has gotten so burdensome, quite a few beekeepers have given up on applying for compensation altogether.”
The Environmental Board acknowledged that such requirements were indeed in place, but nonetheless encouraged people to still report bear damage to the agency.
Kilk, in turn, urged beekeepers to at least log damage in the hunters’ portal JAHIS, for the benefit of overall statistics. Otherwise, the numbers may give the impression that Estonia’s bears have lost interest in beehives altogether. (ERR)