BREST, 3 June (BelTA) – Footprints of a brown bear have been spotted in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park for the first time in 16 years, BelTA learned from the website of the park.
The predator's footprints were found in late May at the border between the national park and the Pruzhany District Organization of the Belarusian Society of Hunters and Fishermen. The footprints were discovered near the Levaya Lesnaya River and on a nearby road. A few days later, the national park got another report about bear's footprints in the south-east of Belovezhskaya Pushcha (in the vicinity of villages Dedovka and Brody).
“Bears disappeared from Belovezhskaya Pushcha in the late 19th century partly due to intensive hunting. The last bear there was shot during a royal hunt. In the previous century, the government attempted to restore the bear population releasing bears from zoos back into the wild. Those attempts failed and the Great Patriotic War hampered further efforts,” the scientific department of the park noted.
A brown bear was last spotted in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 2003. For several months it was living at the edge of the Dikoye swamp, often venturing into oat and barley fields. According to the analysis of the new footprints, this bear is young and is looking for a new habitat.
The brown bear is the largest carnivore in Europe. It is included into the Red Books of Endangered Species of Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
