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Paper short abstract

In June 2025, a wild bear was spotted in the residential areas of Vilnius, causing considerable commotion among residents and an outburst of interest in the media and social networks. This paper dwells on various interpretations of this encounter and their explicit or implicit meanings.

Paper long abstract

In June 2025, a wild bear was spotted in the residential areas of Vilnius, causing considerable commotion among residents and an outburst of interest in the media and social networks. Several reasons could explain this interest. Primarily, bears have been considered extinct in Lithuania since 1883 when the last one was hunted down. For decades, only incidental traveling bears that were making their way through the remote forested areas by the Belorussian or Latvian border to Lithuania have been reported. Yet currently, due to the changing environmental and geopolitical situation, bears started appearing (or even dwelling?) in Lithuania again. It should be noted that bear has always had a prominent role in Lithuanian culture, featuring in literature (starting from the famous horror-fantasy novella Lokis by Prosper Merimee), folklore, ethnography, heraldic, and popular imagery. Its image combines traces of a wild, savage and dangerous beast on the one hand, and a cuddly, slow and lovable creature from children’s stories on the other. Therefore, encounters with bears inevitably evoke strong and ambivalent emotions. Hence, the case of such a creature, which used to be virtually absent even in forested areas, unexpectedly wandering into the streets of the bustling Lithuanian capital, raised a storm of public interest. Various issues were tackled in the discourse that followed, including inefficiency of the governmental institutions, public safety, environmental concerns, etc. The situation was also exploited for endless ads, memes and other forms of popular creativity.