CNN: Scottish zoo to adopt bear saved from Russian-occupied Ukraine

The Five Sisters Zoo in Scotland will adopt an Asiatic black bear who suffered severe trauma in Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast, CNN reported on Sept. 11.

The bear was rescued from an abandoned zoo on the outskirts of Yampil in Donetsk Oblast, when Ukrainian forces liberated the village in October 2022.

He was one of the only animals left alive in the park. According to rescuers at the scene, he was starving, filthy, and close to death.

The bear survived. He was named Yampil, after the village where he was rescued.

“War and conflict…is a horrible thing and it’s very traumatic for people. It’s often forgotten that it’s traumatic for animals as well,” Romain Pizzi, head veterinarian at Five Sisters Zoo, told CNN.

Yampil is currently recuperating at a wildlife refuge in Belgium and will travel to Five Sisters in early 2024.

The Five Sisters Zoo has previously rescued bears and lions who were mistreated in circuses.

How volunteers risk their lives to rescue abandoned animals amid war

When Ukrainian soldiers were entering the village of Yampil in Donetsk Oblast after five months of Russian occupation, they discovered an abandoned zoo on the outskirts. Dozens of animal corpses, either killed by Russian troops or dead of starvation, were lying throughout the zoo’s territory. But i…

The Kyiv IndependentDaria Shulzhenko