On 27 September, specialists of the Directorate of Biological Resources and Protected Areas at the Yakutian Environmental Ministry and the Orto-Doidu Zoo will fly from Yakutsk to Srednekolymsk. They will examine the situation with a polar bear that suddenly appeared in the district.

In early September, a stranded polar bear cub approached the village of Sylgy Ytar in the Srednekolymsky District of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). No female bear was seen around. After playing with local dogs for a while, the bear cub ran away.

There already are several pictures on the internet. However, if the pictures taken in early September feature a bear cub, pictures taken in late September show an adult animal. Now the polar bear is about 150 kilometres to the north of Srednekolymsk, on the bank of the Kolyma River, near a fishing area. According to inspectors, the bear is calm and eats fishing waste.

Its size is estimated at 100 cm tall and 150 cm long as seen from 15 metres away. The bear could be a young female, the specialists believe.

“If this is an adult bear, it’s better to leave it alone,” notes Viktor Nikiforov, a polar bear expert at the Marine Mammals Research and Expedition Centre. “It’s necessary to stop providing it with creep feeding, and if it approaches the buildings, it should be by all means driven off to develop the instinct to avoid people.”