The nomination "Responsible for those...": Alexander Protasov found clubfoots in a landfill and handed them over to veterinarians.
The story that happened near the town of Mirny thundered throughout Yakutia," Almaz-Media journalists said. Pensioner Alexander Protasov lives with his family in the small village of Chernyshevskoye, a hundred kilometers from Mirny. After harvesting and cleaning the surrounding area, he and his son went by car to a local landfill, where locals dispose of garbage. It was there that the Protasovs first heard the heart-rending barking of stray dogs, and then saw a picture that they did not expect to see at all.
On a thin birch tree that was about to break, a little bear cub was sitting at the very top. The clubfoot clung to the top of the tree and growled loudly at the pack of dogs, which was already ready to tear the wild beast apart.
"Our birch trees are frail, ten centimeters thick, they have already begun to break under the weight. The dogs were driven away, they were afraid of us. They began to think about what to do with the bear, you couldn't leave him alone, the dogs would tear him up right away. So we took the child off the birch tree and put him in the trunk. He kicked, even bit me, even though I was wearing a thick glove on purpose," Alexander Protasov said.
The father and son tried to find traces of the mother bear, but realized that she wasn't even close. Otherwise, the dogs would not have been able to get so close to the cubs, much less drive the poor guy up a tree. But as soon as the Protasovs were about to get into the car, they heard a snort from under the driftwood. It turned out that two more cubs were hiding there. They decided not to leave the frightened clubfoots and also took them from the landfill.
"It was late at night, we didn't know what to do with them. They couldn't let them go, they were children without a mother. There are fires around Yakutia, and animals are coming out of the taiga. The babies looked like they were 2-3 months old, they were hungry, so they came to the dump, looking for food. We put them in a separate non-residential building to spend the night, I poured them milk, sliced raw fish, and gave them porridge. At least they ate," Alexander Protasov continues his story.
And in the morning, Alexander and his wife began calling everyone who has anything to do with veterinary medicine. Familiar journalists helped, who went to the park "Living Diamonds of Yakutia", after which the clubfoot were quarantined.
"Some people scolded me for taking the cubs, saying that they should not be removed from the wild. And others, on the contrary, said that we had done the right thing. I couldn't do anything else myself, these are children, and how can you leave children? There's no mom, there's no dog. If the dogs tore them up, it would be on my conscience. And if there was a bear walking around, we wouldn't even get out of the car," says Alexander.
At first, the cubs were planned to be sent to the zoo, but then they decided to send them to rehabilitation. First, the cubs of the brown bear were handed over to specialists of the Mirninsky State Environmental Supervision, veterinarians took tests for rabies and anthrax from them, the kids spent two weeks in quarantine. And then we flew to Primorye. Now the clubfoots live in the Tiger center in Vladivostok.
Photos and videos from the Protasov family's personal archive.