The footage, shot at a landfill near the Kamchatka village of Sobolevo, demonstrates not just individual predators, but a real “bear feast”. Dozens of brown bears, from young individuals to large males, are mastering the landfill, which has become a constant source of food for them, without fear of people and working equipment. This picture, which caused a wide response after its publication on the Komsomolskaya Pravda Telegram channel, is not a curiosity, but a symptom of a deep systemic crisis in which environmental, safety and inefficient management problems are intertwined.
For residents of the Sobolevsky district, such scenes have become an alarming norm. Local residents express serious concerns on social media, noting that predators accustomed to easy prey lose their fear of humans and become unpredictable. “Bears in a landfill are already like a local attraction, but there’s nothing to laugh about,” opinions are shared online. The fears are backed up by real events: last year, a “high alert” regime was already introduced in the area due to the mass release of animals to populated areas. The authorities were forced to impose a curfew on children and restrict the movement of pedestrians, and hunters were allowed to shoot the most aggressive individuals. However, these measures do not solve the root of the problem — landfills still attract animals.
Kamchatka is home to Russia’s largest brown bear population, numbering about 24,000 individuals. Their natural diet is rich in fish and wild plants, but landfills with food waste offer lighter and more high-calorie food. Experts attribute this behavior to a combination of factors: the reduction of natural habitat due to logging and economic activity, and most importantly, the availability of food in landfills. Improperly organized landfills, where waste is not properly isolated, become real “feeders” for bears. Getting used to such a source of food, they stop being afraid of people, which inevitably leads to an increase in the number of conflict situations.
Environmentalists are sounding the alarm: “Bears are smart animals. If they find a place where food is always available, they will come back. The problem is not the bears, but the fact that we created these feeders for them ourselves.” Thus, bears in a landfill are not a local problem of one village, but an indicator of a systemic failure in the field of waste management throughout the region. Kamchatka, which positions itself as a pearl of wildlife and a center of attraction for tourists, suffers from a weak garbage disposal infrastructure. Most landfills do not meet modern sanitary and environmental requirements. The animals that feed on them become hostages of human irresponsibility. They lose their hunting skills, and their behavior becomes dangerous, which is confirmed by tragic incidents, including the recent attack on a tourist in the area of Mutnovskaya Sopka.
Solving the problem requires an integrated approach, which should include the modernization and fencing of landfills, the introduction of waste sorting and the installation of containers protected from wild animals. Equally important is working with the public and tourists to explain the inadmissibility of feeding predators and the proper disposal of food waste. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen control by the hunting supervision, which should regularly monitor landfills and scare away animals. In the long term, the only way out is to develop a waste-processing industry that can dramatically reduce the amount of food waste entering landfills.