Four-year-old German Shepherd, black as tar, in the Mariupol Zoo is only so called - mom for all the animals. This is not the first time Wanda has shown herself to be a wet nurse for big cats! For the first time, Wanda became a foster mother for predators during the military action in Mariupol.
The journalists of the OWL news agency told about how the zoo survived at that time. In the spring of 2022, the Mariupol Zoo found itself in the epicenter of the military action . The Azovstal plant is located literally four kilometers away. Camels, many ungulates, monkeys, ostriches, llamas and a leopard died in the zoo at that time. At this time, a pair of lions had kittens, but their mother refused to feed them. The lioness was afraid of the loud sounds of explosions and left the kids. But quite unexpectedly, the zoo director's dog came to their aid.
"Wanda had 12 puppies then, she was just full of milk. And so we gave her these newborn lion cubs. And Wanda did not chase them away, but began to feed them with her milk. She raised them, fed them, as well as her children," says the director of the zoo, Savely Vashura.
Now these kittens have become big lions that are no different from their counterparts. However, the Shepherd approaches the cage with predators without any fear. And from the side at this moment you can often hear the phrase: "Wanda, where are your children?"
"In 2020, a small puppy, who was still 2.5 months old, was given to us by the Dog Club, we named her Wanda. So she grew up with me. She grew up by leaps and bounds, slept next to me, was near me all the time. Well, that's how she was, she warmed us all through the war, she slept on our feet, because her body is warmer than we were. We have 12 degrees below zero, it's cold, and it was fun and warm with Wanda," the director of the Mariupol zoo shares his memories.
The Mariupol Zoo is a private structure. All animals are kept here at their own expense, the zoo survives by selling tickets and the cafe, which is located on the territory. After the shelling, the birds even stopped laying here; it took two years for the birds to recover and return to normal life.
According to Savely Vashura, almost the whole of Russia is helping them now. The Moscow Zoo presented a lynx and an owl, the Rostov Zoo gave three capuchin monkeys, a baboon, a maned ram and a llama. A bird and monkeys arrived from Penza. And from St. Petersburg – the Ussuri tiger cub.
Well, Wanda has already firmly occupied her niche in the Mariupol zoo as a wet nurse for everyone who was left without a mother. And just recently, footage of Wanda feeding a predator again flew all over the Internet. This time it's a tiger cub.
Photos from the personal archive of Savely Vashura.