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front of one cage stood a couple of Russian families. They
were crowded so close we couldn’t see past them and had to
push in to discover the object of their interest: the three
bear cubs. One of the fathers had just jacked open a can of
condensed milk with his hunting knife and was dribbling the
thick, sweet contents between the bars while the cubs struggled
to get their pink tongues underneath. It was a lively competition
that no one was winning.Most of the gooey milk wound up on
their fur. At the same time one of the children was throwing
popcorn into the cage. The condensed milk and popcorn made
the cubs look like some bizarre form of candy. |
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Igor
muttered about an article he had read in the local paper. It quoted
Anatoly Shevlyagin, the zookeeper, as inviting people to come
feed the bears as a way of keeping costs down at the zoo. The
same article claimed the cubs had been brought in by men in military
uniforms. There was no comment on how the cubs came to be orphans.
At
length, the two families drifted off, and we were free to come
closer and watch the cubs licking the last of their dinner off
one another. Sticky, matted, and dirty as they were, the cubs
were beautiful. One was dark and the other two blond. One of the
blonds was almost white. As we watched them, the dark one particularly
caught my attention. She had a lot of mischief in her eyes. Even
in this filthy captivity, she looked to be having the time of
her life.
The
cubs stared at us until they were sure we had no food. Then they
began to play. They took turns crawling up a section of tree trunk
in the corner of their cage. At the top, each climber would leap
off onto the others. Maureen moved in closer for a better look,
and one of the blond cubs leapt at her, hitting the cage door
with a spitting hiss. Maureen recoiled and fell. It was a sobering
moment. Picking herself up, Maureen wondered aloud if we really
had any business taking on these young bears, when they were already
so conditioned to the wrong kind of treatment from humans.
Seeing
the cubs in this place, treated as they were, I was beyond a rational
answer. However logical misgivings might have been, I didn’t have
any. The indomitable cub spirit made even the dreaded science
committee seem less formidable. While another father and son delivered
up an offering of dubious nutritional value, I said to Maureen,
“No matter what it takes, I’ve got to get these cubs out of here.”
Excerpted
from Grizzly Heart by Charlie Russell Copyright© 2002 by
Charlie Russell. Excerpted by permission of Random House of Canada,
a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part
of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission
in writing from the publisher.
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