Kamchatka is best known for being the part of Russia closest to North America. But now some bears have decided to add a bit of news value to the place. 30 of them have made a sort of environmental protest by eating two of the guards at a platinum mine.
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The bears - apparently starving - killed the men on July 17, it was reported in Russia. As many as 30 bears have surrounded a platinum mine. Both victims worked at the mine as security guards.
About 400 geologists and miners are refusing to return to work, afraid of further attacks. Attempts by local officials to fly to the scene by helicopter and shoot the bears have so far failed because of poor weather, it was reported.
Seems the bears are starving because their favorite food, salmon, has been practically wiped out. Poachers have been destroying the salmon. The bears have a right to be more than slightly annoyed, because the area has, or at least had, 25% of the world’s salmon population.
Nor are the bears doing too well. Let's face it, if they have to eat Russian miners, we can say they've gone downmarket, quite a bit, from fresh salmon. In addition to being starved out by Russia's environmental ignorance, they're being hunted themselves:
Last year hunters shot dead at least 300 bears - picking off most of the large ones. At least another 600 were killed illegally, conservationists estimate.
"It's always the bear's fault," said Laura Williams, the director of WWF's Kamchatka office. She said she was seeking further details of the stand-off at the mine amid reports that hunters had been sent in an sports utility vehicle to the region to kill the bears.
Apparently the obvious solution, feeding the poachers to the bears, hasn’t occurred to anyone.
It’ll be a great place to live, eventually. No salmon, no bears, and the waste from mines. Sort of a suburban Utopia.
It occurs to me if it’s possible to teach bears to ride bicycles, developing a bear-mounted air defence system shouldn’t be too hard…
Bears surround Russian platinum mine, eat guards
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