Status and management of the
brown bear in Russia
Igor Chestin
"...Besides game hunting, brown bears in Russia are also killed
if they become nuisance animals (preying on livestock,
damaging crops or beehives, or attacking humans). In
some areas poaching is extensive and can lead to a
population decrease.
In a healthy bear population, the
impact of the elimination of nuisance animals is very smallAccording to data obtained during a survey on brown
bear-human interactions (Chestin 1993), the number of
permits annually issued for eliminating nuisance bears
vary from 0 to 0.6% of the total bear population in 20
different regions, with an extraordinarily high figure (3.5%)
in Novosibirsk oblast. Assuming that the success of
eliminating nuisance bears is slightly higher than 50%, the
role of this management measure is really limited. Of
course, some nuisance bears are eliminated by land users,
herd keepers, and apiarists without being reported, but
these losses are hard to estimate.
In some areas in Siberia (especially in the Baikal area)
there are years of bear disaster when the crop of their
ultimate autumn food, Siberian pine nuts, is very low. This
forces bears to approach settlements in search for
alternative food, and many bears become very aggressive.
In such years, special teams of hunters are organized to
eliminate bears from the vicinity of human settlements,
and associated population losses can be really dramatic.
For example, the data given by Zhdanov and Pavlov
(1972) provided the evidence that a brown bear disaster in
1962 and 1968 took place in all Asian parts of Russia, at
least from Tomsk oblast through Krasnoyarsk kray,
Irkutsk oblast, Buryatia, Amur oblast to Khabarovsk and
Primorskiy krays, and Yakutia. In the summer and autumn
of 1962, 13 bears were shot near one village in Krasnoyarsk
kray. More than 60 bears were shot in the vicinity of
another village in the same district. One hunter in
Buryatia reported that he killed 11 bears in the period of
20–September 20. According to Zyryanov and
Smirnov (1992), in Tuva Republic, 1951–52, 1962, 1972,
and 1978 were the years of bear disaster. Seven hundred
sixty-seven bears were shot in Tuva (119,400km2) in 1962.
Together with those who died because of starvation and
cannibalism, the losses approached 1,000 individuals, or
67% of population.Poaching can be subdivided into commercial and noncommercial,
the former done for trade, and the latter for
the personal needs of a poacher. Non-commercial poaching
always existed in Russia and probably did not seriously
affect bear populations. Extensive commercial poaching
arose fairly recently.
Commercial poaching does affect brown bear
populations, especially in the Russian Far East. Surveys
done in 1992–1993 (Poyarkov and Chestin 1993; Chestin
and Poyarkov in press) showed a dramatic increase in
poaching for bear gall bladders, and to a lesser extent for
hides, in 1990–1991. Before that, it existed to a very small
extent in the south of the Far East where many North
Koreans have been working for the timber industry. They
purchased bear gall bladders from local hunters and then
sold them in North Korea and China. Recently the demand
for wildlife parts in South East Asia has dramatically
increased due to rapidly growing living standards, and
hence the ability of more and more people to use traditional
Asian medicine which they formerly could not afford.
This unfortunately coincided with impoverishment of the
Russian population and the weakening, if not loss of, state
services including both wildlife and customs control.
Surveys demonstrated that in 1991–1993 many people
poached for a living, illegal networks of dealers were
established, and wildlife products, including brown bear
bile and hides, found their way abroad through all big cities
in the Far East. The international airports or ports used for
this trade included Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Khabarovsk,
Blagoveshchensk, Magadan, and Petropavlovsk-
Kamchatskiy. Not all of the products went through
organized dealers. Dispersed trade by sailors was also very
prevalent particularly for illegal export to Japan.
According to our data (Chestin and Poyarkov in press),
the Far-Eastern trade network accumulated bear products
from the regions between Pacific Ocean and the Yenisey
River. To the west of the Yenisey River, poachers sell bear
parts to dealers from European Russia (Moscow and
Saint Petersburg), the Baltic countries, and the Ukraine.
The impact of poaching on bear populations is hard to
estimate and only a few such estimations have been recently
undertaken. Zheleznov (1993) from Anadyr, Chukotka
reported great reductions in bear numbers because of
poaching done by domestic reindeer herdsmen. According
to his data, a team of herd keepers eliminates up to 35
brown bears each spring. There are about 100 such teams
in the region and even if only 10% of them are engaged in
poaching, the annual population loss far exceeds the rate
of reproduction. Bears are hunted mainly for gall bladders
and hides, which are sold to dealers who come from big
cities after each season, and either buy these products or
exchange them for liquor.
Nikolaenko (1993) from Kamchatka presented data
on not less than 1,500–2,000 bears eliminated annually in
the oblast. The official quota in 1994 was about 600 bears,
and the total population was estimated in 1990 as 9,000
individuals. However, Valentzev (pers. comm.) estimated
that the poaching rate in one district was much lower if
extrapolated to the area of Kamchatka, in which there is
approximately one poached bear per bear legally taken.
At the same time, in 1994 there was evidence of a
decrease in bear trade as well as poaching in the Far East.
After three to four years of extensive market development,
it became saturated and prices for bear bile and hides
decreased (if calculated in hard currency). In 1992–1993
poachers sold bear bile for US$5–8 per g, but now they can
hardly get more than US$2–3 per g. People’s incomes also
became higher, as did prices for food and other goods.
According to the opinion of some respondents, it is not
quite so popular to trade in bear parts as it was in 1991–
1993 (Chestin et al. 1994). The development of bear farms
for supplying bear bile to neighboring Asian markets may
create a problem in the region. Until the end of 1994, one
such farm had been reported on Sakhalin Island..."
Human-bear interactions
The main role of brown bears in people’s life in Russia is
as an object of game hunting. Livestock depredation by
bears is much less of an issue, and is overshadowed by that
by wolves. Occasionally, as was observed in 1961, 1962,
and 1967 in the Baikal region, and in 1985 in the north of
the Russian Far East, bears experience a dramatic lack of
autumn food sources and start preying on people. Crop
depredation, despite being fairly common in oat fields, is
not regarded as a serious problem. Damage to beehives in
the areas with developed honey production is a problem,
and in areas such as Bashkiria, most of the bears eliminated
as nuisances were those which visited apiaries.
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