Until now, bears could be hunted from August 1 until the end of October. Every year, the Environmental Board issues a fixed number of hunting permits for areas where bears have caused the most trouble.

"Now, based on court practice, because the bear is a species listed in Annex IV of the Habitats Directive, which means it has a strict protection status, hunting it is only permitted in exceptional cases, namely for the prevention and avoidance of damage and for the avoidance of dangerous situations," said Tanel Türna, head of the hunting and aquatic life deparment at the Environmental Board.

In practice, the Environmental Board will now assess after every raid on beehives or silage bales whether the offending bear may be hunted or not. Although bears may no longer be hunted for the purpose of controlling the population, Türna did not rule out that this might still have to be done at the end of the summer.

"If we have a group of bears that has already moved to the edge of a settlement. We cannot even specifically say that this is one particular nuisance animal; the problem arises from bears and people living side by side. This is where it might be possible to begin considering limiting the number of bears to avoid a dangerous situation," Türna said.

Aimar Rakko, head of the hunting department at the Ministry of Climate, said managing the bear population is necessary. Otherwise, the authorities will continue dealing with the same problems.

"We have consulted the European Commission, which has said that the Estonian state has interpreted the directive a little too strictly. The directive, in the case of such overgrown populations, also permits managing the population itself to prevent damage," Rakko said.

At the beginning of the year, the ministry sent a corresponding inquiry to the European Commission and hopes to receive clarification in the near future on what the Habitats Directive allows.

"How should member states apply this in situations where the population is in very good condition and has grown too large, and the likelihood of problems arising is very high, because sooner or later the cup will overflow somewhere and these problems will occur," Rakko said.

Animal protection NGO Eesti Suurkiskjad spokesperson Eleri Lopp said limiting the bear population is not possible.

In her written response, she said that if the Ministry of Climate thinks so, then they have not read any valid court ruling or the Habitats Directive.

"This is an impermissible objective and contrary to the directive. According to Lopp, solutions must be found for coexistence; whether there are 1,000 or 900 bears in Estonia makes no difference, a bear will still behave like a bear, and accidents happen with both smaller and larger bear populations," Lopp said.

The Environmental Board said the greatest likelihood of people and bears crossing paths is in Ida-Viru County and Lääne-Viru County, but also in Central Estonia.

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