I saw it on the outskirts of our city district Talnakh. It was looking for food and eating from trash, and later it fell asleep right there. It looked clean except for dirt on his paws. I felt a grain of sadness when I saw it, because it is not natural for polar bears to leave their habitat to search for food. It's an alarming sign, something is not right with nature or with the place where it comes from.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke with Alexei Kolesnikof, a mine worker in Norilsk who saw the animal.

Alexandre Korobkine, a local environmental official, told the French news agency Agence France-Presse earlier this week that the bear was being monitored by police and emergency services personnel. A team of specialists arrived in Norilsk on Wednesday to inspect the bear and determine the best course of action.



Irina Yarinskaya, a photographer, told the FRANCE 24 Observers that a cage was being prepared for the bear before it would be moved to a safer environment.

“The bear was lying on the ground for a long time, occasionally opening its eyes," Yarinskaya wrote in an Instagram post. "It then got up slowly and crossed the road to go to the landfill."



Oleg Krashevsky, a local wildlife expert, told The Guardian that the bear appeared to be struggling to see and may have been lost.

The climate crisis has melted many sea ice habitats, where polar bears traditionally live, and forced them to search for food on dry land. The desperate animals occasionally come into contact with humans. In February, several dozen starving polar bears entered homes and other buildings in the Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, home to roughly 100 people, in search of food.