Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas has ordered enhanced monitoring of wild animals in Lithuania's capital after a bear was spotted wandering through the city's streets over the weekend.
"While we don't have a special team for capturing bears in the municipality, we can't just sit back and do nothing when a wild animal like this appears in the city," Benkunskas wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.
The mayor said he had instructed his team to assess how many search-capable drones are available to the municipality.
In coordination with experts, the city has also agreed to deploy thermal imaging drones in the northern and northwestern outskirts of Vilnius – the areas where the bear was last seen leaving the city.
"If the bear decides to come back, we must be ready to detect it as early as possible," Benkunskas said.
Residents had shared footage with local media showing the wild bear roaming Vilnius streets overnight from Saturday into Sunday.
The Wildlife Care Centre at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences later confirmed that the animal had been spotted leaving the city on Sunday, though it remains unclear where it moved next.
Bear sightings in urban areas are unusual in Lithuania, where brown bears are present but rarely venture beyond remote forested regions.
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