Did the cook blow up the polar bear?

What we know and don't know about a gruesome incident in the Arctic

Video footage has appeared online showing a polar bear writhing on the ground in agony. The incident occurred several months ago in the Arctic on Wrangel Island, where there is a natural reserve by the same name. The lured animal grabbed either a firecracker or a flare, suffering serious injuries to its jaw. Internet users are pinning responsibility for the act on a chef working for Rusaliance, a construction company then operating on the island. The Attorney General's Office has opened an investigation into the incident. Meduza reviews what we know and don't know about this story.

What we know

Video recently appeared online showing a polar bear writhing in agony in the snow. The video was published by Galina Oskolkova, whose son worked on Wrangel Island. According to Yandex.News, the television network REN-TV was the first news outlet to publicize the story, citing reports on social media. REN–TV said the video depicted a bear that either "ate" or took into its jaws a firecracker. The network said the video was recorded on Wrangel Island.

In the video, according to the voices off camera, the bear apparently tried to eat a firecracker, though workers didn't understand at first what had happened. Later in the video, one of the men off camera says, "Poor bastard." In the video, the workers also discuss whether the bear would be able to break into their compound.

According to the website Flashnord, a cook for the construction company Rusaliance “tossed a firecracker” to the bear. (Rusaliance was building facilities on the island for the Russian Defense Ministry.) The cook allegedly first “lured the bear,” which is why the animal then grabbed the firecracker.

Officials at Rusaliance have called the video a provocation. “According to available information,” a spokesperson for the company said, “the bear entered a military compound and was frightened off by military personnel. Afterwards, the animal ran into Rusalinace's construction camp, at which time one of our staff—with the goal of preventing a bear attack on a human being—threw a firework in the direction of the bear, which instinctively rushed at the object, mistaking it for food, and at this moment the firework exploded.”

The chef in question, Evgeny Yurgai, told the news network LifeNews that he didn't throw a firecracker at the bear. He says he stepped outside that night to smoke a cigarette, when he dropped his keys. To retrieve them, he says he had to crawl under a trailer. When he was coming back up, Yurgai says he saw a bear running toward him. At this moment, someone fired a flare at the bear, which lunged at it. Yurgai says it was “a general” who lured the bear during a visit to the construction crew.

According to one of Gazeta.ru's sources, the "guilty party" was fined and returned to the Russian mainland. The Defense Ministry, meanwhile, has reportedly terminated its contract with Rusaliance.

The Chukotka district attorney has opened an investigation into the video. According to the rules of the natural reserve on Wrangel Island, feeding the wildlife is prohibited. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the polar bear as a vulnerable species. There are estimated to be 25,000 surviving polar bears on Earth, though scientists lack some solid population statistics, specifically in Russia and East Greenland.

What we don't know

It's still unknown how exactly the bear received its injuries. The current list of possibilities includes a firecracker, a flare stick, and a rocket flare. Only the district attorney is likely to discover what really happened.

The animal's fate is also unclear. Evgeny Yurgai insists that the bear survived, while the World Wide Fund for Nature says it does not know if the bear managed to escape.