Brown Bears Wake from Winter Slumber
Although heavy snowpack still covers much of Estonia, there are reports that brown bears are sleepily stumbling out of their winter slumber nests, and now hungrily prancing around forests.
The first paw prints were sighted on March 7 in central Estonia, on the border of Rapla and Järva counties, wrote Eesti Päevaleht. Bert Rähni, who organizes local nature hikes and discovered the first tracks, believed the 14-centimeter prints were those of an adult male. Tracks have also been spotted elsewhere.
Estonia has around 700 brown bears, compared to roughly 150 in Norway, 3,300 in Sweden, 1,200 in Finland and 120,000 in Russia.
Ott Tammik