Yakutsk photographer Natalia Negnyurova created this composite image with a reindeer to attract attention to the threat that Siberian wildfires pose to wildlife. She said, “After we posted the pictures, many messaged us worrying that ‘model’ animals were distressed from being so close to fire. We took both pictures in the woods on Yakutia, with a rabbit and a reindeer. The smoke was a bit enhanced while the fire was added later via photo editor”. Photo: Natalia Negnyurova
Yakutsk photographer Natalia Negnyurova created this composite image with a reindeer to attract attention to the threat that Siberian wildfires pose to wildlife. She said, “After we posted the pictures, many messaged us worrying that ‘model’ animals were distressed from being so close to fire. We took both pictures in the woods on Yakutia, with a rabbit and a reindeer. The smoke was a bit enhanced while the fire was added later via photo editor”. Photo: Natalia Negnyurova

By Svetlana Skarbo
1 August 2019

(The Siberian Times) – Predators seek food in villages all around Siberia as climate expert warns of worse fires each year due to soaring rise in temperatures, 10°C above average.

Wild animals are turning to humans as they escape gas-chamber-like woods, with wildfires continuing to rage across almost 3 million hectares.

Even the Arctic is on fire, with smoke blanketing an area larger than the European Union, and a state of emergency declared in several large areas of Siberia.

And a dire warning has been sounded about a major change in climate in Siberia.

Maksim Yakovenko, head of the Russian Federal Service on Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring said: ‘The key issue was forest firefighting, so I would like to say that the situation will be worsening each year because (of) climate change.

Temperatures in some Siberian regions had already exceeded average levels by 8 to 10 degrees Centigrade, he said.

‘It means that in the future we will be facing lasting heatwaves, drying soils, and so the temperatures will be rising, not exponentially, but at a significant pace, higher than on average across the world. 

‘That is why, the climatic situation will deteriorate (in Siberia).’ […]

A bear that fled wildfires in Siberia came to people to seek help in the village of Zamzor, Irkutsk region, 1 August 2019. The bear turned out to be aggressive and was shot. Photo: The Siberian Times
A bear that fled wildfires in Siberia came to people to seek help in the village of Zamzor, Irkutsk region, 1 August 2019. The bear turned out to be aggressive and was shot. Photo: The Siberian Times

‘A small brown bear walked out of woods last night.

‘It was all skin and bones, with visible traces of burns and so exhausted that it wasn’t scared of people’, said resident of Angarsk Maya Fleishter.

‘My husband who is now in the Ust-Kut taiga gave the bear cookies and water.’

‘The bear growled at first, but then gulped water and took cookies, making all the watching – and who themselves spent last week suffocating from fumes – cry.’

Flames consume a tree as wildfires rage in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, 1 August 2019 Photo: The Siberian Times
Flames consume a tree as wildfires rage in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, 1 August 2019 Photo: The Siberian Times

Panicking animals are reported to be seen east and west of Lake Baikal, including on the territory of vast Krasnoyarsk region and in Russia’s coldest region Yakutia which is also on fire.

A family of foxes, with the mother managing to take her young cubs out of the woods and moving them to live right next to a road, in full view of shift workers at Ichedinsky oil mine, said one report. [more]

Massive wildlife tragedy as bears and foxes flee taiga, while smaller animals suffocate in smoke