Hunting regulations changed this spring, and since April, bears may only be culled with a special permit from the Environmental Board if they are considered problem bears.

So far, the board has issued three such permits. The bears targeted are blamed for destroying beehives in Harju County and along the border of Tartu and Põlva counties.

"We're talking about roughly 25 to 30 attacks in those areas. Various preventive measures had been put in place: some were individual hives located very close to homes, while others were groups of hives protected by five-strand electric fences," said Tanel Türna, head of the Environmental Board's hunting and aquatic life department.

Hunters say a traditional bear hunt aimed at managing the population is no longer permitted this year, even though the number of hunting permits had been based on scientists' recommendations.

"The Estonian Environment Agency recommends how many bears should be culled, and this year the recommendation was up to 150 bears. Considering that only about three permits have been issued and how much time and resources it takes to issue each individual permit, there's no way the target recommended by scientists will be met," said Tõnis Korts, head of the Estonian Hunters' Society.

Both hunters and the Environmental Board say the food supply and the number of suitable habitats are limited. With the bear population currently high, they argue there is no longer enough room for all the animals in the forests, making more encounters between people and bears likely.

Eleri Lopp, head of NGO Estonia's Large Predators, which has repeatedly challenged bear hunting in court and prevailed, disagrees.

"People can make these kinds of populist and demagogic claims, but the reality is we don't actually know how many bears there are. The Supreme Court also ruled on wolves and said the state was breaking the law because its monitoring was inadequate. There are all kinds of opinions, but we still have to rely on the facts," Lopp said.

This year, the Environmental Board has dealt with seven bears that entered people's yards.

"The first group this year consisted of very young cubs. The second group was made up of 1.5-year-old bears born last year. They are not clearly problem bears in the sense we're discussing here, but they do represent a very serious problem," Türna said.

According to Türna, it was clear the bears had been fed by people and, as a result, were no longer afraid of humans. While the younger bears were returned to the wild, the board is considering issuing a permit to cull bears that killed chickens in a farmyard.

According to the 2025 wildlife monitoring report, Estonia is home to at least 1,000 bears and the country's bear population has doubled over the past 20 years.

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