Unusually warm winter keeps Ukraine’s bears from hibernation

While some may enjoy the unusually warm December in Ukraine, there is one group that is confused by the weather: bears.

The warm winter with temperatures reaching 10 degrees Celsius has been preventing the bears in the Synevir National Park from hibernation, the park said on its Facebook page. Only three out of the 32 brown bears living in the park went into hibernation.

The Synevir National Park is located near the Carpathian Mountains, 650 kilometers west of Kyiv, in Zakarpattya Oblast. The park covers 404 square kilometers and is home to a brown bear sanctuary.

The situation is similar in another bear sanctuary, Domazhyr in Lviv Oblast, some 200 north of the Synevir Park. Most of the park’s 15 bears went into hibernation, but woke up because of the warm weather, according to Natalya Holayko, an employee of the Domazhyr. They are expected to go back to sleep in early January.

The Kyiv bear community is also awake. Representatives of the Kyiv Zoo told the Kyiv Post that the six bears that live there also aren’t hibernating.

However, it’s not unusual for bears to be at least partly awake during winter.

While bears tend to engage in a less active way of life during cold temperatures, they do not fully hibernate, according to Holyako of Domazhyr. During winter bears are easily awaken and tend to leave their place of residence.

“It doesn’t threaten their health,” Holyako told the Kyiv Post.