This is the story of an orphaned polar bear who was rescued from the brink of death by gold miners in the Arctic.
The cub was left to fend for herself after her mother died while on a remote Russian island, this prompted her to approach the gold mine and beg to be fed.
Despite their being rules forbidding the feeding of polar bears, the miners decided that saving her life was more important.
Therefore, they all cared for her over the course of several months, unfortunately, though, this meant she became tamed like a dog.
As she no relied on the miners for her food, the polar bear cub lost the ability to hunt for itself.
In the footage below, you can see the cub climbing up a ladder before jumping down to lovingly hug one of the miners.
“The female cub spent several months living close to humans, and got so used to them that it behaved like a dog,” said a local report.
Eventually, the gold miners’ contract finished and they returned back to the mainland, but not before making sure the polar bear cub was taken care of.
Andrey Gorban, 56, director of Royev Ruchei Zoo in Krasnoyarsk, who was in charge of the rescue said: “The workers could only get in touch with us at the end of their work stint, as they had no communication link at the base.”
“We were told that the men were leaving back to the mainland, and the cub had stayed there alone.”
“Our only hope was that they left quite a big open rubbish site, so there was a chance that the cub could feed off it for weeks.”
With assistance from the Moscow Zoo, a mission was launched to save the tame bear by taking it to the Moscow Zoo.
The bear was found on the miners’ site clearly pining for its missing friends and was taken to the Zoo where a decision will be made on where to home it.
The bear can not go back to the wild as she is too reliant on humans and would not survive on her own.
Despite breaking the rules regarding feeding the polar bear, Andrey Gorban praised the miners for saving the lost and helpless cub.
“For right or wrong, they fed the endangered animal and through that tamed it,’ he said.”
“The shift workers saved its life, the cub had no chance to survive.”
