In a bid to find food, Russian bears are scavenging garbage and robbing graves to survive. Bears have long been known to forage for food in unexpected places, but the grave robbing is upsetting to locals living in the northern town of Vezhnya Tchova. The grave raiding incidents are believed due, in part, to the extreme weather conditions, which has made traditional foods like mushrooms and berries scare.
“In Karelia one bear learned how to do it [open a coffin]. He then taught the others,” explained Masha Vorontsova, Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Russia in a Guardian UK interview. "They are pretty quick learners." The graveyards serve as natural refrigerators for the animals.
Experts believe that climate change and unstable food sources are not actually the biggest threat facing Russian bears and that a much more immediate threat is posed by the trophy hunters, and poachers along the Chinese border who are paid high prices for bear parts used in Chinese medicines.
Via Guardian UK
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