The brown bears hibernated for only two months due to the warm winter conditions, according to zoo officials.

Residents are lamenting a December without the constant layer of snow that defines Russian winters, when what little light there is typically reflects off the white covering and brightens the days.

In Finland nothing means spring is around the corner more in the south than news that the brown bears at Helsinkis Korkeasaari Zoo have woken from their winters sleep. Zoo employees say the 16 and 11-year-old females hibernation is increasingly cut shorter as the years pass.