Cruel­ty to polar bear in Rus­sia

I guess I have to warn you here: this is not for the faint-hear­ted. The sto­ry and a rela­ted video on you­tube are dis­tur­bing.

The­re has been an extre­me case of cruel­ty to a polar bear on Wran­gel Island in the far eas­tern Rus­si­an arc­tic. A fema­le polar bear accom­pa­nied by cubs had visi­ted a con­s­truc­tion site regu­lar­ly. Appear­ent­ly, she had beco­me used to peo­p­le, who fed her regu­lar­ly. In Novem­ber, a fire­cra­cker was mixed into the food and explo­ded in her mouth, hea­vi­ly inju­ring the ani­mal. A you­tube video shows the bear moving around in gre­at pain and losing blood. The fire­cra­cker is said to have been a mili­ta­ry-type ban­ger nor­mal­ly used for mili­ta­ry edu­ca­ti­on and trai­ning, con­tai­ning 80 gram gun­pow­der.

The offen­der was the cook, who said later that it was an act of self defence, an attempt to divert the polar bear’s atten­ti­on away from ano­ther near­by per­son. This is, howe­ver, unli­kely to be true, accor­ding to local media, who report that the bear had been used to peo­p­le and never show­ing aggres­si­ve beha­viour. It is said that workers quite com­mon­ly pho­to­gra­phed them­sel­ves tog­e­ther with this par­ti­cu­lar polar bear.

A video is cir­cu­la­ting on you­tube, show­ing how the polar bear is suf­fe­ring from strong pain and blee­ding sever­ely. Infor­ma­ti­on about the con­di­ti­on of the bear sin­ce is con­tra­dic­to­ry: the­re are state­ments that she is ali­ve, but others say she has not been seen sin­ce.

Initi­al­ly the offen­der see­med to get away with a sym­bo­lic fine, but sin­ce the case drew inter­na­tio­nal atten­ti­on on the web, poli­ti­ci­ans inclu­ding Rus­si­an Envi­ron­ment Minis­ter Ser­gej Dons­koj and the gover­nor of Chu­kot­ka have deman­ded inves­ti­ga­ti­ons and a lawsu­it. The Att­or­ney Gene­ral has taken up inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, which may lead to impri­son­ment up to 3 or 7 years, depen­ding on source.

A peti­ti­on on thepetitionsite.com is sup­po­sed to increase pres­su­re on Rus­si­an aut­ho­ri­ties to take strong steps.

The online peti­ti­on does not con­tain dis­tur­bing images, but the abo­ve men­tio­ned you­tube video is tough stuff: cruel and dis­tur­bing. If you want to see it, then this is the link.

The offen­der was (is?) working for the com­pa­ny Русальянс (Russ­al­li­ans), which is con­trac­ted by the Rus­si­an Minis­try of Defence. Offi­ci­al­ly, the com­pa­ny is sup­port­ing a foun­da­ti­on that is working for the arc­tic envi­ron­ment, inclu­ding a “har­mo­nic rela­ti­onship bet­ween humans and ani­mals”.

Source: Stutt­gar­ter Nach­rich­ten

Do you agree that spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a gre­at re­source for any arc­tic enthu­si­ast?

Ever­y­thing is available for free, no pay­wall, no regis­tra­ti­on, no paid adver­ti­sing, and all this in spi­te of con­stant cos­ts and effort. Plea­se help us to keep it that way, wit­hout pay­wall and paid ads, and sup­port us through Ste­ady!