Tackling the bear necessities
Lionel de Lange, CEO of Lawrence Anthony Earth Organisation Ukraine, who was in Buffalo City this week to offer help to the EL Zoo, particularly its bears, talked to the Saturday Dispatch’s Tyler Riddin about his experiences rescuing caged animals in the
SEVERAL years ago self-declared animal lover, Lionel de Lange found himself in a foreign country with no anti-animal cruelty laws at a time when the country was in turmoil and the safety of its animals way down on a list of priorities.
Viktor Yanukovych was the president of Ukraine until its revolution in February 2014. The revolution was sparked when, at the last minute, Yanukovych refused to a sign an “association agreement with the European Union” and instead signed a treaty and “multibilliondollar loan” with the Russian government.
This sparked protests which were cracked down on by security forces resulting in violent clashes in the capital, Kiev, amid which Yanukovych fled to Russia.
Opposition to this revolution in some parts of the Eastern European country would eventually lead to the infamous annexation of Crimea and military intervention by Russia as well as the war in Donbass.
It is amid these conditions that De Lange found himself helping the zoo animals of Ukraine, including those in the private zoo of the former president, whose funding had been cut after being deemed non-essential.
“I had been travelling to the Ukraine from 2006 and relocated there permanently in 2011 after meeting a lady online and visiting her there. It did not work out between us but I had made many friends and really enjoyed the country and its people,” explained De Lange, who was born in Durban but raised in Port Elizabeth where he also attended school.
“I had a couple of restaurants in the Ukraine and when President Yanukovych was ousted and the government collapsed the problems with zoos not having funding started and that’s when I contacted the Lawrence Anthony Earth Organisation.”
The organisation is a non-profit dedicated to helping animals and restoring a healthy planet for all life.
De Lange said he had encountered some horrific conditions in the Ukraine zoos such as a pack of seven wolves being kept in two tiny nine square metre cages and five bears in a mere 42m² cage.
He said of calling the Lawrence Anthony organisation: “We had a few phone calls discussing the problems and they asked if I would like to head up the Ukraine office. It progressed from helping zoos with food and meds to full-on bear rescues and now we are in negotiations to have our own sanctuary.”
Under De Lange the organisation now carries out a number of tasks in the Ukraine such as bear and wild animal rescue with a focus on bears and providing medication and food to these animals.
“I have also just ordered a rescue vehicle “Bear Ambulance” which is used for transporting bears but also to fetch and carry foods and other materials needed for the bear sanctuary.
“We assist with bear dentistry which is a huge problem among bears and it’s very expensive. We will supply the meds needed and bring in a dentist to do the job,” said De Lange.
The Ukrainian branch of the LAEO also works with a national park which has a sanctuary that they are allowed to use. The sanctuary is located within the West Ukraine, Synevir National Park in the Carpathian Mountains.
“There is 12 hectares of forest and a river for the bears and alongside that sits a quarantine area where we acclimatise the bears to the new open spaces and social behaviour because most of these bears have never seen another bear until we bring them to the sanctuary.
“We would do all medical procedures if needed in quarantine and generally get them into good health both physically and mentally before releasing them into the sanctuary with the other bears.
“There is an unfinished bear centre which in future could house vets, staff and an operating theatre but there are no funds to complete the building. The staff complement is 16 and that includes security staff,” he said.
Security is required because some areas of the country are still considered to be at war.
“Currently 25 [bears] are in the sanctuary and we could take another 10-15 before we need to enlarge the sanctuary.
“Brown bears are an endangered species and we have +–350 in Ukraine of which about 200 are in captivity [in very poor conditions]. An adult male gets up to 450kg and females are not always as big as the males,” explained De Lange.
He said that the conditions in the sanctuary were so ideal that some of the bears had even begun to hibernate, a rare occurrence for bears not in the wild, and they were able to forage for food in addition to what they were given on a daily basis. His love for bears really flourished after having worked with them.
“I love all animals but bears are seriously abused in the Ukraine and around the world and [having] the opportunity to work with two cubs and see them grow over the last four years is what brought me even closer to these awesome animals,” De Lange said.
Some of the worst situations he has had to rescue bears from is “bear baiting”. He said this horrific act involved a bear being kept on a short run, often a line running between two trees, to which the bear is kept by way of a line at the end of which is a steel collar placed around the bear’s neck.
The bear is only able to move along this line. Fighting dogs are let loose on the bear with the specific aim of attacking it. De Lange said that about 90% of the time there is no way for the bear to even defend itself as the way it is secured prevents it from being able to do so.
“[the worst situations to intervene in are] trying to get a bear from an owner in a baiting station. Our lives were threatened and have been a couple of times with other rescues we are trying to do.
“Apart from baiting stations, it’s the restaurants and hotels that lock up a bear in a small cage, sometimes no more than 1.5 x 1.5 metres, to attract visitors and these bears are tormented daily and fed alcohol and food scraps,” he said, adding that one bear in his care, named Kuzma, was blinded from the consumption of alcohol.
De Lange said that some of the major challenges he faces in the Ukraine include corruption and a lack of funding. Another issue he faces is the extreme weather saying that in winter, high in the mountains where the sanctuary is based, it is possible for a metre of snow to fall in a couple of hours making it almost impossible to transport food and supplies and sometimes leaves them isolated for long stretches of time.
Despite these challenges he loves his job and speaks with a sense of pride when talking about the work he does for the abused animals of the Ukraine.
An example of what makes the work worthwhile is when he released a bear into the snowy quarantine area after it had been rescued from a situation where it spent its whole life under a concrete roof in a small cage. He fondly recounted how the bear would continually look to the sky in disbelief and “hug” the snow-covered trees. “Every bear rescue or making an animal’s life a little bit more humane and bearable is enough for me,” said De Lange.