A bear visited a homestead for honey in Ignalina district, and "rampaged" in Ukmergė district

A bear arrived in the middle of the day in the district of Ignalina, near the village of Ceikiniai. The video, shared by Aušrinė Gertūda Ambrazevičienė, shows a brown bear coming into the yard right next to the beehive and running away after knocking it over.

„This week we had some unexpected visitors to our homestead: yesterday a moose visited and today a bear! In the middle of a white day! Of course, it would be more fun to have more polite guests…”, – commented on the video the owner of the farmhouse.

Evening on 7 May, hunter and blogger Deividas Staponkus also shared a video of a bear ripping a bale of hay on social media. The bear was filmed in Ukmergė/Sirvintos district, in the vicinity of Lake Žirnajų.

The bear has also been spotted several times in the Anykščiai district and surrounding areas. Last year, a woman saw it near her home in the village of Bebardzdžių, Debeikiai municipality, while a beekeeper, Audrius Kusta, said he found his beehives uprooted, and there was little doubt that it was the work of a bear, and a farmer also found her horses scratched up in the night.

This year, hunters captured a bear with a cub in the Mirabelis forest in the Kupiškis district, which means that bears are now living in Lithuania, not just visiting.

Rimantas Pečkus, chairman of the Anykščiai Branch of the Lithuanian Hunters and Fishermen Association, said that this beast is not to be feared – it avoids humans and does not attack them unless it is sick. When encountering a bear, R. Pečkus advised not to frighten it in any way, not to wave your arms, not to roar.

„The bear will not attack. It will be more aggressive with cubs, or sick. And a rabid animal can attack anything – even a fox. Although the chances of encountering a bear are small, if you do, never make sudden movements and calmly move out of its sight," the hunting expert advised.