If you go down to the woods today...
Well, the chances are you won’t be in for a surprise. However, a good many people were somewhat shocked on Thursday to encounter a relatively substantial brown bear, estimated from its pawprints to be an adult male of around six years, trundling around the normally well-ordered streets of Kauniainen. Kauniainen is an affluent residential community nestled inside the borders of Espoo, just west of Helsinki.
The bear was spotted going at a fair clip in Kauniainen in mid-morning. Dozens of calls came in to the Espoo police and to the regional emergency response centre.
By mid-afternoon things had quietened down somewhat, and the bear was expected to return to its assumed home in the woods of Northern Espoo, beyond the Outer Ring Road. Though Espoo is a satellite city of the capital, with a population in excess of 200,000, large parts of it are far from urbanised, and it also contains the wilds of the Nuuksio National Park.
It has long been known that bears frequent this area in the south of the country, but they very seldom appear in public - least of all in fashionable and highly desirable suburban areas.
The first report of a bear on the loose came from Bembölentie in Kauniainen shortly after 10.30 a.m. Another call came in from someone who had sighted the beast close to the Kauniala Veterans’ Hospital. The callers were not out picking spring flowers in local woods, but had seen the animal scampering down an asphalt road near the local swimming pool. At around midday, a surprised cyclist came within about ten metres of the bear.
At this point the animal was heading in the direction of the IKEA superstore, close to the main highway to Turku. It is unlikely the bear was planning on some redecoration of its woodland home, since IKEA was closed like everywhere else for the Ascension Day holiday.
There was then a break of around two hours, before the bear resurfaced at around 2.00 p.m. in the Espoo suburb of Tuomarila, in an area north of the railway line but south of the Turku motorway.
The police had as many as five or six patrol teams out during the course of the day. The main purpose of the police presence was to warn walkers and joggers, and some potential hot-spots were cordoned off to be on the safe side.
A police spokesman said that the aim was to allow the bear - which had become somewhat agitated and alarmed - to calm down. At no point did anyone attempt to chase it. Equally, the idea of taking the bear out with a rifle is regarded as an absolute last resort, as if the shooting starts there will always be a danger of collateral damage.
The rumours of a city-bear on the loose in the Greater Helsinki region prompted a good many inquisitive people out on the holiday afternoon, but the bear chose not to repeat its public appearances later in the day.
Finland has a population of anything up to 1,000 brown bears. Whilst they mostly inhabit wild and remote areas, particularly in the forests of the north and along the eastern border with Russia, there have been a number of cases of bears appearing in rural communities, where they have put the Finns’ much-vaunted claims of "living in harmony with nature" to the test.
Bears are relatively shy creatures, and bear-human encounters are extremely rare, but in 1998 a jogger died after being mauled by a bear, apparently after inadvertently getting between a mother and her cubs.
Bear hunting is permitted on a limited scale, with the intention being primarily to cull wounded or otherwise dangerous animals, or those that have become too used to visiting people’s backyards.
Late News: There have been no sightings of the urban bear in the early hours of Friday. It was last spotted shortly after midnight in the area known as Kirkkojärvi, between Espoon Keskus and the IKEA store. The police hope that the animal has now wised up and gone back to the woods.
Helsingin Sanomat
