Teacher Stumbles Upon Baby Bears ‘Dancing’ In Finland Forest, Thinks He’s Imagining It
Physical education teacher Valtteri Mulkahainen from Sotkamo, Finland, has been devoting a lot of his free time to wildlife photography. For the past six years, Valtteri has been shooting his country’s wild animals and captured many magical moments. And this is a story about one of them.
On the 3rd of June, 2013, Valtteri was planning to explore the Finnish taiga around the town of Martinselkonen. As the man was exploring the area, he noticed a brown bear coming into a clearing with a few small cubs.
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Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
“The bear cubs behaved like little children,” Valtteri told Bored Panda. “They were playing, and even started a few friendly fights. I felt like I was on a playground in front of my house, where small children frolic around. That’s how much these adorable animals reminded me of little children. At one point, the three of them got up on their hind legs and started pushing each other. It was like they were dancing in a circle.”
Valtteri was in a shelter 50 meters (164 feet) away from the cute bear cub action and had the perfect view. “I photographed the cubs with the bear all evening and all night,” he said.
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
You can bump into a bear pretty much everywhere in Finland except the Åland Islands. Most of them live in the eastern part of the country and Lapland, but people regularly see these majestic creatures in the southern and western areas as well.
Like the cubs have successfully proven us, bears are agile and strong. They use their forelegs very effectively for both hunting and getting around. Moreover, they’re very good swimmers and climbers. Basically, they’re the whole package.
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
However, the fact that Valtteri managed to get such stunning pictures of the family is really fascinating. Bear will typically try to avoid humans as best as they can. Humans rarely see them in the wild since these animals almost always retreat immediately after detecting our presence. Keen senses and the ability to move silently make them perfect at this game of hide and seek.
According to the latest assessments by the Finnish Natural Resources Institute, there were between 2020 and 2130 bears before the 2019 hunting season.
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
Image credits: Valtteri Mulkahainen
It's the Teddy Bears Picnic!!!
Today's the day when teddy bears have their piiiiccnicc!
YAY!!!!
As soon as I saw the first picture I immediately started singing that song in my head!
Me, too!!!
What enchanting photos! They look like illustrations for a book on Fairies
Absolutely adorable.
This is a child's book come to life!
Well that certainly wins cutest thing I've seen this month.
How can there be no video?!?!
Yeah, I really wish he'd video'd it! Instant viral YouTube hit!
This is what I want to see. Even though I get minus points for never making a comment?
So. Sticking. Cute!!!!!
Daaaancing bears, paaaaaainted wings... ♬♪
Oh to be a cub in natures green hub, of no fear with brothers so dear, For time of a season I see no clear reason, To host in our eyes a tear.
i think you got inspired by NZ police posts : )
What??
I mean the...Bear Necessities!
I would love to see a video of this. Pictures are still great!
That is the cutest thing I've seen all day maybe year
Aww, sweetness overload - with mama carefully keeping a good eye on them and the world around them. Precious!
Like a fairy tale! Totally in love with those babies ❤
I'm happy 😍😍
So cute. I want this concept of 'hunting season' to be banned everywhere and forever.
Bear hunting is strictly controlled in Finland. You will need to pass tests and get a special licence. Every kill needs to be informed to the gamekeeping authorities and also the police. You can never shoot a female and/or her cubs, and never one near their nest. But you need to understand that only by this kind of controlled hunting, the population stays within reasonable numbers and people can keep living in eastern and northern Finland (to be clear: there aren't many people living there as it is).
What this planet needs is to keep people in reasonable numbers. Animals are not plundering and destroying our planet "people" are.
Since we have completely altered the ecology, we have no choice but to have hunting. There are no large groups of predators to keep down the numbers of, say, deer. Because of that, if we did not predate them ourselves, they would overpopulate their food supplies, and starve to death in high numbers, or die from diseases due to not being as healthy because they are overpopulated. It's the same with all sorts of species that used to be kept controlled by other species. We have the responsibility, the duty, to control the numbers of these species, so they don't end up starving to death or dying from diseases caused by overpopulation. We caused this situation, so we must make it better. That means giving these animals (the numbers over a certain healthy level) a quick, honorable, humane-as-possible death.
"humane-as-possible death?! why we believe we are the one deciding who lives and who dies? and how. thats scary
YES this is what I wanted to say too. People who say that animals are friends, we should live with them in the woods and never kill an animal again just demonstrate how estranged they really are from nature...
Oh yea, Beachy, we could be debating what sort of people are estranged from nature.
Everything human beings do, can do HUMANELY, don't you think so, Mary Bittle? The first thing in order is to keep human population and urban sprawl under control, then to stop plundering and destroying our planet, for innocent animal's sake and ours.
Oh, my heart!
Nature will not 'balance itself' because "people" are destroying it faster than she can recover.
Shame he didn't video this beautiful scene.
'Looks Very Much Human-Like' - Humans are animals.
"Man....is a tame, civilized animal....but if he be insufficiently or ill educated, he is the most savage of earthly creatures." - Plato. No doubt about it.
Our creator has been so kind and loving to gift us with such a wonderful assortment of animal life!
Certainly not kind to animals, don't you think so, Lorac? "They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I would rather have a bit of kindness." - Graham Greene, The Captain and the Enemy
Wish there was a video. It's delightful!
.....and like, we always go from delightful to hunting and killing.
Yes, baby animals are cute. But don't forget that even wild animals that are cute have predatory instincts, and approaching them, especially if they have cubs, can be lethal.
Which is the reason these pictures are being taken from a considerable distance. This is with a long-distance lens, so he is nowhere as close as it appears.
I know they are taken from a distance, thank goodness. Mulkahainen is quite a pro nature photographer, he knows what he's doing. My comment was aimed at people who think that cute animals can't be dangerous.
Clearly, they are practicing the dance of their people in preparation for their adulthood ceremonies.
Really?
Absolutely adorable!! I feel honored to get to see this, even though it's in pictures.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful pictures! They look like kids in bear suits. I love the one when they are stomping their feet. Like you said, they looked like they were dancing. This made my day so thank you again for that!
This is wonderful, it's such a shame there isn't a video.
Omg so magical
Soooo cute!
This is soooo cute 😘😘😘
that so adorable i love bears
Cutecutecutecuuuuute
Love, love, love!
Looks like three dancing fauns from Gliwice :) Faun-5e46f...2b4ed1.png
Such a treat, for the photographer and us, those bears are so adorable you have the urge to play with them, I think it may have been difficult for the photographer, to hold his excitement, I would be shaking like a leaf in the wind, great post, thanks !!!
They're Evolving...
You sure were there at the right time, such a cute capture... like they were holding hands, dancing in a circle
Living up here in NEPA, I see lots of wildlife and the bears always come around and leave me alone. They love my berry bushes and fruit trees, so do the deer and wild turkey. Seeing the lil bears playing immediately the Teddy Bear Picnic song came into my head. Seeing the young animals is so wonderful. This winter the mother possum who stays in my garage (she comes and goes) had one of her daughters with her and I am waiting to see a few baby possums by Easter. She has wondered into the house as well as her daughter a few times just looks around and when they see me they just stop and look and i talk to them and get them some more food. Please protect all of HIS animal friends of the land, air and sea and stop trophy hunters and poachers and their govt enablers. Pax+
Thank you Albert for your comment. It sounds like you were describing a scene on other planet, where there are no vile humans to utterly destroy nature and kill all life it supports.
This gave me goosebumps so hard! The most precious thing I've ever seen omg.
Great to see them having fun in natural habitat ... the real nature
These lil rascals absolutely made my day - 3 little bears out to play !!!
Lovely photographs, Mr. Mulkahainen! Btw, we have more bears in New Jersey, USA than there are in all of Finland. Treasure your precious bears!
Incredible photographs, what stunning images of them playing 😍
OH MY HEAVENS!!! HOW SWWWWEEETTTT! <3<3<3
"When shall we three meet again; in thunder, lightning, or in rain?" LOL.
"Hunting season's coming, we three will never see each other again." not LOL
Okay, that one partway up the tree is so cute I'm not sure how to handle it.
This is part of a fairy tale, right? ;)
Absolutely Marvelous!
They have free health care in Finland, no wonder they're dancing!
Not completely free, but I'd say it's very affordable.
The "Free health care" for bears is to be gunned down by doctors/hunters.
ahhh its Boo Boo family,wondering where Yogi is theses days
Last one standing has to hitchhike their way down to Sweden for some hippy-ass solstice party.
Wish he'd shot a video!
The are doing the Carlton! :)
I thought they had collars on and were trained but it's fluff! 😍
Jerry Bears
Love Finland, it has a very unique and largely unknown role to play in World War Two (potentially pitting Hitler against Stalin!). Have a read of 'Weird War Two' by Denham and Trow for more info - https://amzn.to/3nzp2sr
I was sad to read that there is a hunting season in Finland (for bears) The little bears are utterly gorgeous. Wonderful photo captures.
Very bearable.
Thank you for providing these magical images ... such a joyous, exciting time for you ~
Precious!
Does anybody know what species of bear these are?
Does Anybody know what species of bear this is? Because I think its moon bear in also equally think I'm wrong.
Me and the boy's dancing in the forest out of context.
What a huge mother!
Reminds me of the wonderful song "Dancing with Bears!
Let them have a little fun before they'll be hunted to death by lovely sanguinary sub-human monsters.
good It's the Teddy Bears Picnic!!!
jerry garcia reincarnated
Children in bear suits. I saw a bunch of baby gorillas that also looked like children in costume. Adorable.
Can we get the video of the same??
"Ladies to the center and back to the bar. Gents to the center with a right-hand star. Back to the left now don't get lost. Swing yer gal 'n promenade!"
So funny I can bearly contain myself
Cute photos! They look like mythical pan creatures. When you say "According to the latest assessments by the Finnish Natural Resources Institute, there were between 2020 and 2130 bears before the 2019 hunting season"... Two thousand bears doesn't seem like very many.. and this is BEFORE the HUNTING SEASON? So creepy. Here are some cute bears. So cute. There are only a couple thousand left and we will soon hunt down and murder some of them?? Please tell me you meant 2 million.
Who did down-vote Keith comment? Oh yea, a trophy hunter. They don't like to be called what they are: cowardly murderers; to gun down an unsuspected animal for fun is delightful to these merciless, compassionless sub-human monsters.
They look like they are dancing in a circle! Too bad he didn't film them.
If you go down to the woods today, you are sure of a BIG surprise....Thank you for sharing...
This is wonderful. But I have to ask: Does he not have video capabilities on his phone...?
Ok.... what kind of potato phone this guy has? He can't record a video??
Awesome cute fabulous pictures
Lovely photographs, Mr. Mulkahainen! Btw, we have more bears in New Jersey, USA than they have in Finland. Treasure your bears!
Pretty impressive raising 3 cubs. Love the photos.
The three bear cubs are way past the legal limit of cute! I'm melting!
Absolutely the bestest pictures I've seen in awhile. Thanks for sharing them.
I love these pics however it looks like they are playfighting, not dancing.
Now these are very sweet pictures, but this behavior is very well documented, so really nothing special. Cubs are very cute and playful, that's for sure!
so cute
Lol. They look like kids dressed up as bears. It’s terrible when the entire population is only just over 2000 though 😢 I hope they’re not hunted
good
Awww beautiful 😍
It's like the grateful dead bears
Wow! It's amazing he was so close (only 50 meters/164 ft) away, I would have been afraid to be so close
would been nice to see an actual video instead of still pictures.. but, its still so darling... <3
Want video!
Wow you can really dance
Ringa ringa roses
It reminds me of the Teddy Bear Picnic song.
Jerry Bears!
....... Read more </a
I'm sorry but these look photoshopped. The heads are too big for the bodies and the fur is different in the shots...
Hunting season coming up, disgraceful!!!!! Let’s them be.
Hunting is a necessary evil. As we have completely gutted the normal ecosystems, species become out of balance, and will either die of starvation, or die of diseases caused by overpopulation. Since we have destroyed the natural system, we have the responsibility, the duty, to make sure these species stay within healthy numbers, so they don't die from starvation or terrible diseases. Instead, they get a very quick, honorable, humane-as-possible death. As well, several of these species, when killed humanely, can be used for purposes like human consumption, rather than being wasted for nothing. However, as ugly and distasteful as hunting may be, it is our duty to take the place of normal predation, or other normal population control. We caused this, so we must fix it, and the way we fix it is to regulate by legal hunting.
No, Mary, everything human beings do can do HUMANELY!! What you think a human being got his brain for??....to plunder, torture, kill, and destroy our planet and all life it supports? What a cute excuse to murder for joy and entertainment, isn't it? Hunting is evil, you're right about that, however, it is indisputably UNNECESSARY!!! There's always a humane solution to every problem - the problems usually caused by humans.
Again, lovely killers can't let wildlife live, and so, it appears, can't Michelle.
Just a joke! Neighbor's' kids playing in bear costumes
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Single Mom With 4 Kids Lost Her Job But Was Able To Stay On Top By Banking Continuously $1500 Per Week With An Online Work She Found Over The Internet... Check The Details........ HERE☛ career31.com
It's the Teddy Bears Picnic!!!
Today's the day when teddy bears have their piiiiccnicc!
YAY!!!!
As soon as I saw the first picture I immediately started singing that song in my head!
Me, too!!!
What enchanting photos! They look like illustrations for a book on Fairies
Absolutely adorable.
This is a child's book come to life!
Well that certainly wins cutest thing I've seen this month.
How can there be no video?!?!
Yeah, I really wish he'd video'd it! Instant viral YouTube hit!
This is what I want to see. Even though I get minus points for never making a comment?
So. Sticking. Cute!!!!!
Daaaancing bears, paaaaaainted wings... ♬♪
Oh to be a cub in natures green hub, of no fear with brothers so dear, For time of a season I see no clear reason, To host in our eyes a tear.
i think you got inspired by NZ police posts : )
What??
I mean the...Bear Necessities!
I would love to see a video of this. Pictures are still great!
That is the cutest thing I've seen all day maybe year
Aww, sweetness overload - with mama carefully keeping a good eye on them and the world around them. Precious!
Like a fairy tale! Totally in love with those babies ❤
I'm happy 😍😍
So cute. I want this concept of 'hunting season' to be banned everywhere and forever.
Bear hunting is strictly controlled in Finland. You will need to pass tests and get a special licence. Every kill needs to be informed to the gamekeeping authorities and also the police. You can never shoot a female and/or her cubs, and never one near their nest. But you need to understand that only by this kind of controlled hunting, the population stays within reasonable numbers and people can keep living in eastern and northern Finland (to be clear: there aren't many people living there as it is).
What this planet needs is to keep people in reasonable numbers. Animals are not plundering and destroying our planet "people" are.
Since we have completely altered the ecology, we have no choice but to have hunting. There are no large groups of predators to keep down the numbers of, say, deer. Because of that, if we did not predate them ourselves, they would overpopulate their food supplies, and starve to death in high numbers, or die from diseases due to not being as healthy because they are overpopulated. It's the same with all sorts of species that used to be kept controlled by other species. We have the responsibility, the duty, to control the numbers of these species, so they don't end up starving to death or dying from diseases caused by overpopulation. We caused this situation, so we must make it better. That means giving these animals (the numbers over a certain healthy level) a quick, honorable, humane-as-possible death.
"humane-as-possible death?! why we believe we are the one deciding who lives and who dies? and how. thats scary
YES this is what I wanted to say too. People who say that animals are friends, we should live with them in the woods and never kill an animal again just demonstrate how estranged they really are from nature...
Oh yea, Beachy, we could be debating what sort of people are estranged from nature.
Everything human beings do, can do HUMANELY, don't you think so, Mary Bittle? The first thing in order is to keep human population and urban sprawl under control, then to stop plundering and destroying our planet, for innocent animal's sake and ours.
Oh, my heart!
Nature will not 'balance itself' because "people" are destroying it faster than she can recover.
Shame he didn't video this beautiful scene.
'Looks Very Much Human-Like' - Humans are animals.
"Man....is a tame, civilized animal....but if he be insufficiently or ill educated, he is the most savage of earthly creatures." - Plato. No doubt about it.
Our creator has been so kind and loving to gift us with such a wonderful assortment of animal life!
Certainly not kind to animals, don't you think so, Lorac? "They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I would rather have a bit of kindness." - Graham Greene, The Captain and the Enemy
Wish there was a video. It's delightful!
.....and like, we always go from delightful to hunting and killing.
Yes, baby animals are cute. But don't forget that even wild animals that are cute have predatory instincts, and approaching them, especially if they have cubs, can be lethal.
Which is the reason these pictures are being taken from a considerable distance. This is with a long-distance lens, so he is nowhere as close as it appears.
I know they are taken from a distance, thank goodness. Mulkahainen is quite a pro nature photographer, he knows what he's doing. My comment was aimed at people who think that cute animals can't be dangerous.
Clearly, they are practicing the dance of their people in preparation for their adulthood ceremonies.
Really?
Absolutely adorable!! I feel honored to get to see this, even though it's in pictures.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful pictures! They look like kids in bear suits. I love the one when they are stomping their feet. Like you said, they looked like they were dancing. This made my day so thank you again for that!
This is wonderful, it's such a shame there isn't a video.
Omg so magical
Soooo cute!
This is soooo cute 😘😘😘
that so adorable i love bears
Cutecutecutecuuuuute
Love, love, love!
Looks like three dancing fauns from Gliwice :) Faun-5e46f...2b4ed1.png
Such a treat, for the photographer and us, those bears are so adorable you have the urge to play with them, I think it may have been difficult for the photographer, to hold his excitement, I would be shaking like a leaf in the wind, great post, thanks !!!
They're Evolving...
You sure were there at the right time, such a cute capture... like they were holding hands, dancing in a circle
Living up here in NEPA, I see lots of wildlife and the bears always come around and leave me alone. They love my berry bushes and fruit trees, so do the deer and wild turkey. Seeing the lil bears playing immediately the Teddy Bear Picnic song came into my head. Seeing the young animals is so wonderful. This winter the mother possum who stays in my garage (she comes and goes) had one of her daughters with her and I am waiting to see a few baby possums by Easter. She has wondered into the house as well as her daughter a few times just looks around and when they see me they just stop and look and i talk to them and get them some more food. Please protect all of HIS animal friends of the land, air and sea and stop trophy hunters and poachers and their govt enablers. Pax+
Thank you Albert for your comment. It sounds like you were describing a scene on other planet, where there are no vile humans to utterly destroy nature and kill all life it supports.
This gave me goosebumps so hard! The most precious thing I've ever seen omg.
Great to see them having fun in natural habitat ... the real nature
These lil rascals absolutely made my day - 3 little bears out to play !!!
Lovely photographs, Mr. Mulkahainen! Btw, we have more bears in New Jersey, USA than there are in all of Finland. Treasure your precious bears!
Incredible photographs, what stunning images of them playing 😍
OH MY HEAVENS!!! HOW SWWWWEEETTTT! <3<3<3
"When shall we three meet again; in thunder, lightning, or in rain?" LOL.
"Hunting season's coming, we three will never see each other again." not LOL
Okay, that one partway up the tree is so cute I'm not sure how to handle it.
This is part of a fairy tale, right? ;)
Absolutely Marvelous!
They have free health care in Finland, no wonder they're dancing!
Not completely free, but I'd say it's very affordable.
The "Free health care" for bears is to be gunned down by doctors/hunters.
ahhh its Boo Boo family,wondering where Yogi is theses days
Last one standing has to hitchhike their way down to Sweden for some hippy-ass solstice party.
Wish he'd shot a video!
The are doing the Carlton! :)
I thought they had collars on and were trained but it's fluff! 😍
Jerry Bears
Love Finland, it has a very unique and largely unknown role to play in World War Two (potentially pitting Hitler against Stalin!). Have a read of 'Weird War Two' by Denham and Trow for more info - https://amzn.to/3nzp2sr
I was sad to read that there is a hunting season in Finland (for bears) The little bears are utterly gorgeous. Wonderful photo captures.
Very bearable.
Thank you for providing these magical images ... such a joyous, exciting time for you ~
Precious!
Does anybody know what species of bear these are?
Does Anybody know what species of bear this is? Because I think its moon bear in also equally think I'm wrong.
Me and the boy's dancing in the forest out of context.
What a huge mother!
Reminds me of the wonderful song "Dancing with Bears!
Let them have a little fun before they'll be hunted to death by lovely sanguinary sub-human monsters.
good It's the Teddy Bears Picnic!!!
jerry garcia reincarnated
Children in bear suits. I saw a bunch of baby gorillas that also looked like children in costume. Adorable.
Can we get the video of the same??
"Ladies to the center and back to the bar. Gents to the center with a right-hand star. Back to the left now don't get lost. Swing yer gal 'n promenade!"
So funny I can bearly contain myself
Cute photos! They look like mythical pan creatures. When you say "According to the latest assessments by the Finnish Natural Resources Institute, there were between 2020 and 2130 bears before the 2019 hunting season"... Two thousand bears doesn't seem like very many.. and this is BEFORE the HUNTING SEASON? So creepy. Here are some cute bears. So cute. There are only a couple thousand left and we will soon hunt down and murder some of them?? Please tell me you meant 2 million.
Who did down-vote Keith comment? Oh yea, a trophy hunter. They don't like to be called what they are: cowardly murderers; to gun down an unsuspected animal for fun is delightful to these merciless, compassionless sub-human monsters.
They look like they are dancing in a circle! Too bad he didn't film them.
If you go down to the woods today, you are sure of a BIG surprise....Thank you for sharing...
This is wonderful. But I have to ask: Does he not have video capabilities on his phone...?
Ok.... what kind of potato phone this guy has? He can't record a video??
Awesome cute fabulous pictures
Lovely photographs, Mr. Mulkahainen! Btw, we have more bears in New Jersey, USA than they have in Finland. Treasure your bears!
Pretty impressive raising 3 cubs. Love the photos.
The three bear cubs are way past the legal limit of cute! I'm melting!
Absolutely the bestest pictures I've seen in awhile. Thanks for sharing them.
I love these pics however it looks like they are playfighting, not dancing.
Now these are very sweet pictures, but this behavior is very well documented, so really nothing special. Cubs are very cute and playful, that's for sure!
so cute
Lol. They look like kids dressed up as bears. It’s terrible when the entire population is only just over 2000 though 😢 I hope they’re not hunted
good
Awww beautiful 😍
It's like the grateful dead bears
Wow! It's amazing he was so close (only 50 meters/164 ft) away, I would have been afraid to be so close
would been nice to see an actual video instead of still pictures.. but, its still so darling... <3
Want video!
Wow you can really dance
Ringa ringa roses
It reminds me of the Teddy Bear Picnic song.
Jerry Bears!
....... Read more </a
I'm sorry but these look photoshopped. The heads are too big for the bodies and the fur is different in the shots...
Hunting season coming up, disgraceful!!!!! Let’s them be.
Hunting is a necessary evil. As we have completely gutted the normal ecosystems, species become out of balance, and will either die of starvation, or die of diseases caused by overpopulation. Since we have destroyed the natural system, we have the responsibility, the duty, to make sure these species stay within healthy numbers, so they don't die from starvation or terrible diseases. Instead, they get a very quick, honorable, humane-as-possible death. As well, several of these species, when killed humanely, can be used for purposes like human consumption, rather than being wasted for nothing. However, as ugly and distasteful as hunting may be, it is our duty to take the place of normal predation, or other normal population control. We caused this, so we must fix it, and the way we fix it is to regulate by legal hunting.
No, Mary, everything human beings do can do HUMANELY!! What you think a human being got his brain for??....to plunder, torture, kill, and destroy our planet and all life it supports? What a cute excuse to murder for joy and entertainment, isn't it? Hunting is evil, you're right about that, however, it is indisputably UNNECESSARY!!! There's always a humane solution to every problem - the problems usually caused by humans.
Again, lovely killers can't let wildlife live, and so, it appears, can't Michelle.
Just a joke! Neighbor's' kids playing in bear costumes
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Single Mom With 4 Kids Lost Her Job But Was Able To Stay On Top By Banking Continuously $1500 Per Week With An Online Work She Found Over The Internet... Check The Details........ HERE☛ career31.com