Russian woman is fined after ChatGPT bear prank goes viral and triggers a real wildlife search

A woman in Russia's Far East sent a friend an AI-generated ChatGPT image of a brown bear strolling along a street as a prank, but the joke escalated into widespread panic and forced the local district chief to deploy wildlife rangers in search of an animal that did not exist. A court this week ordered her to pay a fine of 15,000 roubles ($178) after she contacted police to confess. Russia is on high alert following the deaths of at least 26 people in bear attacks since spring, with the country's brown bear population having more than doubled in 30 years to 308,000.

A second woman was fined 30,000 roubles in September for posting a separate fake bear photo in the Transbaikal region.

More than 3,440 bears identified as a danger to people have been culled across Russia since the start of 2026.