A young female bear caused a stir after wandering out of the forest and into the leafy suburbs of the Lithuanian capital.
For two days, the brown bear ambled through the neighbourhoods of Vilnius, trotted across highways and explored backyards – all while being chased by onlookers with smartphones and, eventually, drones.
The government then issued a permit for the bear to be shot and killed.
That did not go down well with Lithuania’s hunters who, aware that there were only a tiny number of the protected species in the entire country, refused.
The Lithuanian association of hunters and fishermen said it was shocked by the government’s approach.
The association’s administrator, Ramutė Juknytė, said the bear was a beautiful young female who was about two years old and did not deserve to be shot. “She was scared but not aggressive. She just didn’t know how to escape the city but she didn’t do anything bad,” he said.
The organisation tracks the movements of bears. It believes there are only five to 10 bears in the Baltic nation, but does not have a precise number.
The drama began on Saturday when the bear entered the capital. It was the first time in many years that a bear had entered the city and it became a national story. The animal came within about 4 to 5km (about 2-3 miles) of the city centre.
Since causing a stir with their permit to kill the bear, Lithuanian authorities have been on the defensive.
Deputy environment minister Ramūnas Krugelis said that the kill permit had been issued purely as a precaution in case the bear posed a threat, according to a report by the Lithuanian broadcaster LRT.
The hunters proposed a more humane approach: sedation, tracking and relocation.
As the debate over the bear’s fate unfolded, she took matters into her own paws and wandered out of the city.
Juknytė said the bear was recorded by camera on Wednesday, peacefully wandering through a forest about 60km (40 miles) from Vilnius while munching on corn.
Brown bears are native to the region and were once common. They were wiped out in Lithuania in the 19th century due to hunting and habitat loss.
In recent years they have started reappearing in small numbers, typically wandering in from neighbouring countries such as Latvia and Belarus , where small bear populations still exist. Bears are protected under Lithuanian and EU law as they are considered a rare and vulnerable species in the region.