Finnish brown bear lumbering through the Russian border region in the southeast of the country.
Unseasonable warmth and dampness across Finland during much of January appear to have convinced some brown bears to leave hibernation.
Several of the animals have been seen crossing roads, mainly in the southeast of the country, and ursine movements have also been detected through radio monitoring of bears fitted with tags.
Ilpo Kojola, a research scientist at the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, said the active bears had probably “not built their winter quarters” properly.
Kojola added that a bear would not usually leave its den in winter unless its bedding became saturated by rainfall.
The season’s first blizzard, predicted for late in the week by Finnish meteorologists, could force the early risers to find another dry and warm place to resume their winter slumbers.
Photo: Davy Hiller
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