Struggling Crimean safari park seeks new homes for 30 bears facing euthanasia

THE owner of a struggling safari park in Crimea is giving more than 30 bears away to save them from euthanasia.

Oleg Zubkov, the owner of the Taigan lion safari park near Simferopol, said he is seeking new homes for the animals because he can no longer afford to feed them. Inspectors ordered the safari park to close for three months after finding violations of veterinary regulations.

Speaking on his Youtube channel, Mr Zubkov, also known as the “Lion Man”, said he could not afford to look after the animals without the revenue from ticket sales. “Twelve lions and tigers will be moved to other zoos shortly, and a final decision will be made about … shooting 30 bears from the park,” he said in the video. Mr Zubkov said he had already fed several dozen of his Vietnamese pigs to the big cats to cut costs, and that he had told regional veterinary authorities about his decision to cull his bears.

Valery Ivanov, the head of the state veterinary committee in Crimea, told Interfax that no documents related to the killing of animals had been received. The park, which is home to 2,500 animals, was opened in 2012. Mr Zubkov also runs a second zoo, in Yalta. Both have been the subject of numerous complaints about the conditions in which the animals are kept.

Last year Taigan was at the centre of a scandal after one of the lions bit a 46-year-old female tourist posing for pictures with the animal.

Mr Zubkov insisted that his bears live in better conditions than in many other zoos in Russia, and that the biting incident was the only one of its kind.

He has complained that authorities have been trying to shut him down ever since Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Mr Zubkov was a supporter of the annexation and featured in Russian television reports promising that his “fighting lions” would maintain order during the referendum on “reunification” with Russia.