Bears, Food and Fire

Yaylyu: the forest, the orchards and the bears

In the Altai village of Yaylyu, bears were seen near homes and fruit trees in the summer and autumn of 2026. Staff at the Altai Nature Reserve described animals eating apples and pears and entering people’s yards. An October report from the village described a simple sequence: once the available fruit in the school grounds was gone, the bears stopped visiting.^[1]

Two sources of food came together here. A poor crop of Siberian pine seeds had been reported in the taiga around Lake Teletskoye. In the village, there were fruit trees. For a bear, forest food and orchard fruit were part of the same landscape, even though people drew a boundary between them: this is the taiga, and this is our yard.

Patrols began around Yaylyu on 22 August. By mid-October, the situation had eased, according to a report on the inspectors’ work. Between those dates lay almost two months of living with bears close by.^[2]

Something similar had happened here before. In his account of the 2018 season, reserve employee Yuri Kalinkin reported roughly twelve different bears seen near Yaylyu in September and October. Pine nuts were scarce that year. Yet rowan, viburnum and currants produced good crops, while bilberries and raspberries produced average ones.^[3]

This detail helps explain what a food shortage means. A forest can remain green and produce berries while yielding few of the nuts that matter for autumn feeding. What counts for an animal is the kind of food, how much there is, and whether it is available when the animal needs to build up reserves for winter.

The story of Yaylyu therefore begins before the first report of a bear near a house. It includes earlier seasons, plant development, harvests and orchards where an animal finds an alternative to its usual food.

A forest cabin visited by a bear since spring

In Transbaikalia, a camera trap recorded a different sequence. In the Bolshaya Burecha River basin, a bear was recorded near a remote forest cabin on 14 and 27 May and on 4 and 11 June 2026. On 3 August, the camera recorded a bear opening the door and going inside.

These dates appear in a CHITA.ru article based on a report from the Sokhondinsky Nature Reserve. Staff also described poor crops of pine nuts, blueberries and lingonberries. They suggested that the bear was looking for food; its precise motives cannot be established. People leave provisions in cabins like this.^[4]

The dates matter: a bear had been recorded near the building in spring, before the reported poor crop in late summer. The article does not say whether all the footage was confirmed to show the same animal.

For a person, a forest cabin provides shelter and supplies for a long stay in the taiga. For a bear, food left there also becomes something it can reach. A human source of food is introduced deep inside the forest, far from a village.

Tomsk Region and Kuzbass: what happened to the food supply

As early as July, a forecast from Russia’s Federal Forestry Agency rated the pine nut, lingonberry and cranberry crops in Tomsk Region at two points out of five.^[5] By September, accounts of the actual season were appearing. In an interview on 23 September, Andrey Kolomin, head of the regional hunting authority, described very poor natural food supplies and small bilberries growing unevenly across the forest.^[6]

A pine nut buyer saw another side of the same season. In an October interview, he described a fall in deliveries from Bazoy in Tomsk Region and Tisul in Kuzbass.^[7] This indirect evidence is consistent with reports of poor crops. However, purchasing volumes also depend on harvesting and trading conditions and do not, by themselves, measure the forest’s yield.

In a statement dated 20 August, the Kuzbass forestry authority specifically listed food waste and the remains of domestic animals among the reasons bears appeared near settlements. In September, poor crops and possible movements of animals from neighbouring regions were added to the explanations.^{[8, 9]}

Kuzbass has a history of this too. An April 2021 article about two young bears near Syrkashinskaya Mountain in Mezhdurechensk described them feeding at a rubbish dump and being fed by people. Both animals were eventually shot.^[10]

Rubbish sites, food scraps and deliberate feeding are all things people provide. They give an animal repeated experience of finding food near us. Its later appearances near people become a continuation of that experience.

What logging and fire leave behind

As the climate warms, the conditions in which forests burn are changing too. Scholten and colleagues, studying extreme fire seasons in northeastern Siberia, showed the combined influence of early snowmelt and changes in high-altitude air currents: together, they helped produce unusually warm and dry conditions, followed by high levels of lightning and fire activity. Earlier snowmelt gives forest fuels more time to dry out and extends the period during which fire can spread. This is an established mechanism shaping fire conditions; the reasons for particular bear visits are examined through local evidence on natural food, forest conditions and food available near people.^[24]

A poor crop in a particular year and the loss of a feeding area are different processes. In one, plants remain in place but produce little fruit. In the other, the forest itself changes: trees are felled or die, vegetation is damaged by fire, and a former source of food disappears from the site.

A Siberian study by Elena Kukavskaya and colleagues shows how logging and fire can compound each other’s effects. The researchers surveyed one hundred plots at twenty-three sites in the Angara region, the Shushensko-Minusinsk region and Transbaikalia. They compared forests with different histories of logging and fire.

On logged sites in the Angara region, fuel loads reached 135 tonnes per hectare, largely because of logging debris. Repeated fires on logged sites were accompanied by poor tree regeneration and a shift to herbaceous vegetation. Under the conditions studied in Transbaikalia, fire hazard was higher at illegally logged sites than at legally logged ones. The effects varied by area and logging method.^[11]

These findings show a concrete human contribution. Logging leaves material that can feed a later fire. Repeated burning changes how a forest recovers. Behind the words “logged” and “burnt” are changes in conditions that last for years.

For animals, those conditions include food and shelter. A feeding area cannot be restored by a decision on paper: plants need time to grow and begin producing fruit and seeds.

Regional authorities have also discussed the effects of fires on bears. In September 2026, Yakutia’s Ministry of Ecology linked the difficult situation in the Mirninsky, Suntarsky and Olenyoksky districts to a shortage of natural food after summer fires. A similar explanation had been given at a press conference in Irkutsk Region back in September 2021: poor berry and cone crops, fires in the north of the region, and movements of animals.^{[12, 13]}

Fire changes forests in different ways. On some disturbed sites, berry shrubs spread over time. The Canadian study by Proctor and colleagues concerns grizzly bears: it shows the importance of such feeding areas while also examining the dangers associated with roads and human access.^[14]

This is part of the story of forest recovery. A berry patch in a newly opened area and a mature stand of cone-bearing Siberian pines provide different foods at different times. The area that has become covered in vegetation again does not, on its own, tell us which food sources have returned.

Roads, and a harvest shared by people and bears

We usually notice the last part of the journey: a bear has come out of the forest. But people are also going deeper into the forest.

A study of bear attacks in Russia in 2001–2018 found an association in Siberia between the number of human casualties, road density and the presence of Siberian pine. The authors discuss human access to food resources shared with bears: pine nuts and berries.^[15]

A road opens up places that used to be hard to reach. People come to gather wild food, work and spend their leisure time. Their routes intersect with those of animals.

Human pressure on a forest is therefore not just a matter of how much land has been logged. The road network, access to feeding areas and people’s behaviour within them also matter. A forest may still be there on the map while the intensity of our presence changes considerably.

Other countries: similar mechanisms, different seasons

Reports from Siberia prompted us to look at other forest regions. There, too, bears appear near homes, encounters turn into conflicts, and decisions are made to shoot animals. But similar headlines can conceal very different circumstances and scales.

In British Columbia, 8,797 calls about black bears were recorded in January–July 2026, compared with 7,312 in the same months of 2025: an increase of 20.3%. These are calls to the service, including reports of sightings; they are counted separately from attacks and human casualties.^[16]

In Colorado, the wildlife agency received 6,129 reports of black bear sightings and conflicts between 1 January and 13 August 2026, compared with 3,115 over the same period a year earlier. The agency described a shortage of natural food in parts of the state amid low mountain snowpack, drought and fires. Near homes, bears found rubbish, bird feed and pet food.^[17]

The same food becomes a problem along tourist routes. In September, Canada’s Waterton national park warned of a bear that approached people and showed interest in their food on trails and at campsites.^[18]

Japan presents a different picture. Official tables record 68 human casualties, including fatalities, in April–September 2026. The 2026 figures are provisional and were updated on 14 October 2026. In the same months of 2025 there were 108 casualties, and in 2023 there were 109. Yet more people died in 2026: six, compared with five and two respectively. The number of incidents and the severity of their consequences do not necessarily move in the same direction.^[19]

Forest food supplies differ too. In Tohoku, beech trees produced a much better crop in 2026 than in the poor years of 2023 and 2025. On Hokkaido, the forestry authority reported poor crops of mizunara oak acorns and wild grapes, but better fruiting among other plants surveyed.^{[20, 21]}

Local differences matter in Europe as well. The prefecture of Romania’s Covasna County reported 300 calls to the 112 emergency number in the first eight months of 2026, more than the 216 recorded in the whole of 2025. The report separately mentioned two attacks on people in the current year. Meanwhile, in its October 2026 account of a young bear near Nýdek, the Czech nature conservation agency noted that it stayed in the forest and did not seek contact with people.^{[22, 23]}

What emerges is not one worldwide wave, but many local stories. In some places, calls have risen sharply. In others, an animal has simply appeared within its range. Elsewhere, the season has provided more natural food than the previous one, yet individual encounters have ended in deaths.

What begins before a bear is shot

Time passes between changes in a forest and the appearance of a bear near people’s homes. Logging, fire, the growth of food plants, a poor seasonal crop, an animal learning to use a new source of food: each process takes its own time.

The measures for which people are responsible must therefore begin early too. They include protecting feeding areas, managing logging debris, preventing fires, planning roads and dealing with food waste. For a village, both a large dump on its outskirts and food left accessible beside individual houses matter.

A threat to people has to be dealt with immediately. But removing a particular dangerous animal does not restore the forest, clear away the rubbish or prevent the next poor crop.

Our material shows how important it is to bring together things that usually end up in separate reports: forest conditions, natural food crops, fires, logging, roads and events near people’s homes. This is where the human part of the story lies: in decisions made long before the first alarmed phone call.

Everyone sees the bear near the village. The changes that brought it there may go unnoticed for years. An account of human safety is incomplete without the forest the animal came from, and what we do in that forest.