AI Bear Prank Costs Russian Woman a 15,000-Rouble Fine
In September, a woman in Magdagachi used ChatGPT to create a bear image and sent it to a friend. The picture spread through messaging apps, drawing alarmed calls to police and bringing wildlife rangers to the settlement.
The search was for an animal that did not exist. The woman was fined 15,000 roubles ($178).
A false sighting amid real danger
Amur courts said the district head dispatched wildlife rangers after residents reported the supposed bear. The woman later called police and admitted creating the image. A court ordered her to pay the fine this week, the courts' press service said.
Meanwhile, bear attacks have killed at least 26 people across Russia since spring, when hungry bears emerge from hibernation, RIA Novosti reported. A separate TASS tally put the death toll at about 25 by October 10, citing regional authorities' reports and open data. Bear expert Sergei Krechmar has said Russia has no centralized state tally of attacks and fatalities; enthusiasts compile the figures. In particularly bad years, annual deaths have reached 80. That level was recorded in 1986, and again in 1987 and 1996, Krechmar told TASS.
Reports of bears approaching people came from more than 40 Russian regions in 2026, with the most difficult conditions in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, TASS reported. Officials in Tomsk district were receiving three to four reports of bear sightings a day. On September 20, two people were found dead after an animal attack. Authorities then restricted forest activities in the region until November 1.
Bear population measures under consideration
Russian authorities have linked the higher risk of encounters to growing bear populations and poor crops of berries and pine nuts. Last month, the government said it was drawing up urgent measures to control the brown bear population. The number of brown bears has more than doubled in three decades, reaching 308,000, partly because winters have become shorter and milder.
More than 3,440 bears considered a threat to people have been killed since the start of the year, according to a TASS tally published on October 10. In Krasnoyarsk Krai, where bear attacks killed seven people, 898 brown bears had been killed under population-control measures by October 8. The figure rose to about 982 by October 12. Authorities cited a shortage of natural food in the taiga as a reason bears were approaching settlements.
The Amur case was not the only reported fine for a fabricated bear sighting. In mid-September, a woman in the eastern Transbaikal region was fined 30,000 roubles for posting a fake image of a bear in a village, legal news agency RAPSI reported.
