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2026-10-10 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
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Plague-ridden boar or harmless nuts: how much meat do bears actually eat?
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Elizaveta Novikova
[Regnum] In some regions of Russia, the wild boar population has declined sharply in recent years. This is primarily due to culling to prevent the spread of African swine fever (ASF). This dangerous virus is transmitted from wild pigs to domestic pigs.
And now the lack of wild boar is being blamed for the increasing frequency of bear attacks on humans. It's claimed that the bears have nothing to eat, so they're attacking mushroom pickers. Regnum News Agency investigated whether this is true.
PROTECTING DOMESTIC PIGS
African swine fever poses no threat to humans, but infected animals can die. Therefore, controlling the spread of the virus remains a priority for veterinary services.
Wild boar populations are a natural source of infection, so special zones are created around pig farms where wild animals are allowed to be shot.
And this isn't just about one-time decisions within individual hunting grounds. In 2022, the government recommended that regions create 30-kilometer-wide buffer zones around pig farms, which should allow for the removal of up to 100% of wild boar. A 10- to 30-kilometer-wide zone has been established for the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krais.
In January 2026, the Kursk Region created 30-kilometer buffer zones around pig farms, which also allowed for the culling of up to 100% of wild boar. In Tatarstan, the wild boar population has decreased from 6,076 to 551 over five years.
In the Far East, the population declined even more dramatically. In the Amur Region, the population fell from 2,371 to 84 individuals in one year, due both to mass mortality from African swine fever and forced population control.
In Khabarovsk Krai, after an outbreak of African swine fever, only 3,800 of the 11,800 animals survived. The situation in Primorye was also extremely dire: in the Pogranichny district, approximately 95% of the wild boars disappeared after the first outbreak of African swine fever.
Both a hunter and a scavenger
Brown bears are omnivorous, and their diet varies greatly depending on the region and season. One of the most detailed studies, conducted in the Central Forest Reserve in Western Russia, suggests that fruits account for approximately 30% of their annual diet, while ungulates account for a much smaller proportion, 15%, and even then, only in the spring, not throughout the year.
In an earlier study at the same reserve, the authors noted that bears eat moose, wild boar, and various mouse-like animals in small quantities, so the scientists even grouped them together. Annually, mammals alone accounted for only about 11% of the bear's diet.
The Far East has its own unique characteristics. Ivan Seredkin, a brown bear researcher and leading researcher at the Pacific Institute of Geography, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote that in the Southern and Middle Sikhote-Alin, brown bears' most common prey items are large animals such as wild boars and red deer.
At the same time, according to his data, bears do not kill most of the animals they eat themselves, using the remains of the prey of other predators and regularly eating the remains of the victims of tigers, lynxes, leopards and wolves.
Therefore, it's more accurate to talk not about the diet of the average Russian bear as a whole, but about its regional characteristics. In other words, a statement like "wild boar makes up 20% of the bear's prey in Russia" is too broad a generalization. In some ecosystems, the wild boar's share may be insignificant, while in others, it truly becomes an important prey item.
No boars, but no attacks either
Primorsky Krai is indicative in this sense, where there are very few wild boars left.
As Sergei Aramilev, General Director of the Amur Tiger Center, told Regnum news agency, two species of bears inhabit the region—the brown bear and the Himalayan bear: "Bears are primarily herbivores, although they are predators. Therefore, wild boar has never been part of their diet."
According to him, if brown bears do hunt ungulates in the spring, they primarily hunt young sika deer and red deer.
Thus, Aramilev does not consider the shooting of wild boars to be a factor that could force Primorsky bears to starve and become aggressive towards humans: “The situation is stable, the number of conflict situations is minimal.”
According to him, the situation in the region has been under control for a long time, so the expert believes it is not entirely accurate to compare Primorye with regions where bears have now begun to approach people more frequently.
Nevertheless, there is an important example: even in a region where wild boars are almost completely gone, bears have not become more likely to attack people.
Regulation needs to be changed
Kirill Kabanov, a member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC), who is closely involved in the issue, doesn't deny that changes in the boar population can impact the ecosystem, but he believes it's wrong to consider this factor the primary cause of the bears' behavioral changes: "It's not a question of boars. It's a question of regulation. Of laws and a lack of understanding on the part of officials."
Bears have other sources of animal food, so the expert believes that the declining wild boar population shouldn't force them to approach humans. Kabanov sees the main problem as the deterioration of the hunting regulation system—official animal counts can be underestimated, leading to fewer hunting permits being issued.
Kabanov also notes that hunting bears takes significantly more time than hunting many other animals. It takes a long time to find and track them, and the allotted time for the hunt may not be enough. The expert cites the example of his own farm in the Tver region. It can house around 20 bears, but only a few hunting permits are issued: "I can basically track a bear for two to three months. They give me a two- to three-week license."
Starting September 1, 2025, a bear harvest application may only include two consecutive periods totaling up to 30 calendar days. According to Kabanov, "this regulation ends up hindering law-abiding hunters and law-abiding hunting grounds, not poachers."
Kabanov sees the solution in more accurate animal counts and issuing permits based on their actual numbers: "We need to return to normal, completely clear reporting. And issue licenses precisely in accordance with this reporting."
The expert also points out the peculiarities of bear behavior. He believes that bears must maintain a fear of humans: if they are absent, they may become accustomed to finding food near populated areas and return there again.
Oleg Ilyinov, a game warden and director of the Medved hunting farm in Altai, also doesn't connect the change in bear behavior to the disappearance of wild boars. He says the overall state of the food supply is far more important: "The main reason is the lack of natural plant food."
If the forest is rich in berries, mushrooms, nuts, roots, gophers, and other small animals, bears have no need to forage near humans. Problems arise in lean years, when familiar food becomes scarce—bears often venture to apiaries, villages, and other human-connected areas where they can find food.
Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Hunting Resources and Nature Conservation at the Siberian Federal University, Alexander Savchenko, like Kirill Kabanov, draws attention to synanthropization, the adaptation of bears to life alongside humans.
According to him, if the animal has already learned to find food near populated areas and no longer perceives humans as a threat, a lack of natural food may push it into villages.
Thus, the decline in boar numbers may be just one element of a more complex picture. Bear behavior is simultaneously influenced by the availability of natural food—primarily plant food—habitat change, and the degree of habituation to human proximity.
People started hunting less
Experts agree on one thing: bear hunting, essential for population control, has become difficult and less appealing. In publicly accessible areas, permits are relatively inexpensive, but in private hunting areas, they can cost tens of thousands of rubles. Hunters risk wasting a month of their time, returning empty-handed.
Bear meat requires veterinary inspection due to the potential for trichinosis, tanning the hide is expensive, and disposing of the kill, or parts of it, is extremely difficult: organized collection points are virtually nonexistent. As a result, hunting permits are available, and there is a hunting limit, but the number of people willing to hunt bears is extremely low.
This statement is particularly well illustrated by the example of Krasnoyarsk Krai. Over the past ten years, the established harvest quota has been exceeded by an average of approximately 15%. In the 2025–2026 season, hunters were allowed to harvest 4,616 bears, but by early September, only 244 had been harvested.
Kirill Kabanov also points out other changes—the shortening of hunting seasons, the fragmentation of hunting grounds, a decline in youth interest in the trade, and the loss of a generation of hunters who possessed the necessary skills.
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Thus, there is no clear connection between the current bear encounters with people and the decline in the wild boar population: experts interviewed by the Regnum news agency do not consider the decline in the wild boar population to be the main reason for the current conflicts between predators and people.
For example, unlike bears, wolves hunt wild boars much more frequently—depending on the region, boar meat makes up 15% to 60% of their diet. However, there are no reports of wolves invading cities or regularly attacking people.
Experts agree that the increasing incidence of bears approaching people has no single cause. And the discussion should not only focus on the large number of wild boars shot, but also on how to accurately count bears in Russian forests and how effectively the entire hunting management system is functioning.
The government is also taking the necessary measures. On September 30, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev announced plans to allocate additional funds to the regions for bear population control. Furthermore, authorities are considering removing the brown bear from the list of limited species, allowing regions to make independent decisions more quickly.
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Posted by badanov 2026-10-10 00:00||
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