ULAN-UDE, May 5 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian border guards in the Siberian republic of Buryatia bordering Mongolia have caught an unusual trespasser – a brown bear cub. The three-month baby bear was found hungry and frightened near the settlement of Kyakhta.
“Head of the Kyakhta district administration Valeri Tsyrempilov has shown concern over the cub’s future lot and asked a local resident, Konstantin Borisov, to give shelter to the baby bear until it is decided where this “Mongolian guest” is going to live,” a spokesman for the municipal administration told Itar-Tass.
The bear has been staying with the Borisov family for a third day running. It was given shelter at a hayloft. “We tried to bottle feed the cub but it chewed the teat into pieces,” said Irina Borisov. “So we have to pour milk in a bowl. Before coming up to it, the baby bear is waiting for us to disappear. It looks like it is missing its mother.” The Borisovs are trying to see to it that locals do not come too close to the cub. “Although small, it is still a wild beast,” Konstantin Borisov says.
The cub’s future is so far vague. The head of the district administration plans to contact the Ulan Ude-based museum of the ethnography of the trans-Baikal peoples to ask it give shelter to the baby bear. The museum has a mini-zoo, but it is usually overcrowded. It is quite possible that neighboring Mongolia might claim back its wild “citizen.”