Brown bear at VU Zoological Museum. Photographed by S.Sinkevičius

The raising human population and more intensive farming put bears under pressure as predators, doing harm to domestic animals. Intensive deforestation during the XVII-XVIII centuries also put it's toll and at the end of the XIX century bears could only survive in densely forested areas. Best-known naturalist in Lithuania, professor Tadas Ivanauskas indicated, that the last brown bear was hunted in Lithuania in 1883 in Musteika village, Varėna district. VU Zoological Museum has a big male bear from Estonia, donated by G.Vaitiekūnas, several bear cubs from the old Vilnius university collection and one female, that took part in a P.Abukevičius movie "Adventures of the bear Nida", is still unavailable to public, waiting for the restoration... And what do bears do during winter? You are welcome to read here...

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