Three heart-melting bear cubs were discovered two weeks ago right on the doorstep of animal shelter K-9 in Siberia, in the east of Russia.
K-9 administrator, Oksana Shchapova found them a paper box, dumped off by an unknown person. “As I arrived to work, there was box. I thought someone dumped off puppies. I opened the box and there they were, bear cubs. It was unexpected,” Oksana says.
The little bears will get stronger by drinking cow’s milk out of the bottle for now, but as soon as they grow up, they will need to be completely isolated from humans.
They need to be isolated so that they can adapt to living in the wild where they eventually will be released, K-9 director Vyacheslav Slavin told Reuters TV. Any contact with humans during growing up could be deadly for bears as they will be less prone to feed on natural sources and will seek nutrition from humans.
“For two, maybe three months they will be fed from a bottle. Then we will put them in an enclosure away from people’s eyes. We will stop feeding them from our hands. We will throw them food and they will pick it up and rip it themselves – just as animals in nature do,” Slavin said. “It is too early to let them go this year. Next year as they grow up and get stronger, we will let them go.”
