#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. More than 20 days have passed since the moment when the polar bear cubs from Yamal were taken away from the shift workers’ base for the second time by helicopter. During the time, the ‘homeless children’ traveled 350 kilometers. This was told by the specialists of the scientific expeditionary center Marine Mammals.
Recall that the brothers nailed to the workers of the Harasaveyskoye field village in December 2021. People fed the kids, gave them the names Hara and Savey, and reported the ‘losses’ to specialists who took the clubfoot away from the shift workers and left them some food in the hope that the brothers would be able to settle in and survive.
The whole of Russia watched the kids’ fate, they even created an Instagram accounted for them, where the cubs ‘cheer’ for Russian skiers at the Olympics, ‘show off’ their shapes and complacently accept the offerings of fans in the form of songs and drawings.
18 days after the first ‘evacuation’, the hooligans, having reeled more than 600 kilometers on their ‘bear pedometer’, returned home as if nothing had happened. Their path could be observed on the sensors, which the Arctic hooligans eventually got rid of.
The second time, the cubs were taken even farther – to the deserted coast of the Ob Gulf.
“We didn’t see them again. From this moment on, the only thread connecting us with the ‘homeless children’ remains the signals of satellite beacons attached to the cubs. We only see a trace, we don’t know if they are confused or self-confident, play merrily or wander dejectedly, sleep, hiding in hummocks from the wind, or find the frozen remains of the prey of adult tribesmen and greedily satisfy their hunger. We know for sure that they are walking together, maybe only briefly diverging and again clinging to each other”, the Marine Mammals research center said in a statement.
On February 10, the beacon fixed on Khara stopped sending signals. Experts suggest that, most likely, these are technical reasons – either the antenna was bitten off, or it detached itself and fell into the water. The second sensor is working, the bear cub continues on his way.
Experts believe that the brother is somewhere nearby. Now the cubs have already traveled about 350 kilometers – they rounded the Shokalsky and Vilkitsky islands and turned east.
Until 2024, scientists plan to obtain the most complete data on the polar bear population state in our country. We also wrote that bears now behave differently in Taimyr. Scientists think that animals are affected by the reduction of Arctic ice in the area.
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Text: Angelica Stepanova, Photos: istockphoto.com and @hara_savey
