By Tim Binnall
A troubling piece of footage from Siberia shows an unfortunate polar bear that somehow had the name of an iconic Russian tank spray-painted on the side of its body. The precise date and location of the video are unknown as it reportedly first appeared on social media in Russia earlier this week and quickly went viral. In the footage, a pair of men can be heard observing the creature as it ambles along the frozen tundra and wondering if it was a dirty bear.
The nature of the animal's odd coloring is revealed when it turns and they see that someone had spray-painted 'T-34,' after a famous Russian tank, on the side of the creature. As one can imagine, wildlife experts were aghast at the graffiti and expressed concern that the writing could cause the polar bear problems when it came to hunting for food and avoiding predators since its natural camouflage would be ineffective thanks to the large black writing on its body. That said, they were optimistic that the writing would hopefully come off after it swims in the water a few times.
As for who could have done such a dastardly deed, one Russian ecologist insisted that "scientists could not do this, it could have been somebody who ‘joked’ like this." While that seems to be the most likely scenario, how the ne'er-do-well managed to tag the monstrous creature is also something of a mystery. To that end, the ecologist speculated that the bear had probably been sedated for a lengthy period of time in order for it to be spray painted with such large and clear writing.