St. Petersburg hunters will be able to hunt brown bears without annual limits

For St. Petersburg hunters going to the forests of the Leningrad region and other regions, the rules for the production of brown bears may change. The Ministry of Natural Resources signed an order to cancel the annual limits and quotas for the shooting of this beast - the document has already been sent to the Ministry of Justice for registration, the St. Petersburg Diary reported.

Since 2010, the maximum number of bears allowed to shoot, annually approved by the heads of regions, then the quotas were distributed among the hunting grounds. The new version of the order abolishes this procedure.

The Ministry of Natural Resources explained the reason for the cancellation. According to the agency, hunters across the country master less than a third of the allocated limits. For example, in 2019-2020, they produced 7,844 bears out of the allowed 25,501 (30.8%), and in 2024-2025 - 12,753 out of 46,944 (27.2%). In some regions, such as Kamchatka and the Krasnoyarsk Territory, this figure did not exceed 14-15%.

The initiative has already caused disputes between hunters and conservationists, since experts do not agree on the reasons for the frequent exits of bears to suburban villages and trails. Hunters attribute this to population growth and strict quotas, while zoologists and ecologists see the root of the problem in deforestation, lack of food and irresponsibility of vacationers who feed animals or leave garbage in their homes.

In parallel to the settlements of the Leningrad region come wolves. For example, in the vicinity of the Friendly Hill, their numbers are regulated. Earlier, one of the predators dragged a domestic dog there.