A wildlife sanctuary owner dubbed the Bearman of Buncrana is planning to rescue two caged brown bears from Russia and bring them 5,000km to Ireland.
Killian McLaughlin, who runs the Wild Ireland animal retreat in Donegal, is in a race against time to save them from 3m x 3m cages at a dog pound in the war-torn region of Dagestan.
He was contacted by the Bears In Mind charity who feared for the animals’ safety, especially as the pound owner has no experience of handling bears.
He told the Irish Mirror: “This lady has a little animal sanctuary in Dagestan with cats and dogs and foxes and things.
“But because she looks after animals she’s been given five brown bears to look after. One of them is really old and he won’t be able to travel and two of them are quite young so she will quite happily look after them.
“But she has two that are mature adult males that she needs to move quite quickly because she doesn’t have the accommodation for them, she doesn’t have the experience and she’s actually quite frightenened of them.”
Killian, who said they have the experience and the facilities at Wild Ireland to look after the bears, added: “I’m building a new state-of-the-art bear forest so there’s going to be a large area of the forest that is going to be dedicated to these bears and I’m bringing them back here hopefully later this year.”
The Donegal man captured the hearts of the nation with his plan to bring back fearsome creatures to his sanctuary.
The facility on the Inishowen Peninsula, which opened in October 2019, even had its own television show on RTE last year which was a huge hit with viewers.
The solicitor brought brown bears, European wolves, wild boar and lynx to the north-west and recreated the natural habitats of the animals.
The Moondance Productions team are back filming and Killian, who said RTE had not yet commissioned the second season, said he is hopeful new episodes will be broadcast later this year or early in 2022.
He added: “The second series will focus on [the rescue].
“Bears In Mind are heading up this rescue and we’re the partner.”
Killian, who spoke about the logistical challenges, said Dagestan is known to be the most dangerous place in Europe. He added: “Obviously I’ll have to be careful, I’ve got a little boy now, and if it’s too dangerous to go then I won’t go and maybe we’ll arrange to meet them somewhere along the way like the border.”
Killian spoke about how two beluga whales were transported thousands of miles from China to Iceland last year by an airline cargo company who chartered a plane.
He added: “There’s loads of Irish companies like Ryanair and Aer Lingus and it’d be brilliant if they got involved, it’d be unreal.”
- If anyone would like to donate to the bear appeal they can contribute by logging on to: www.wildireland.org/russian-bear-appeal.
