The Mykolaiv zoo already boasted of being the largest in Ukraine, it now exhibits new specimens: several Russian rockets fell there, including two cluster munitions, accuse its officials, trapped with thousands of animals without perspective evacuation.
As the warning sirens sound in this key city on the road to Odessa, the main port of Ukraine (South-West), a leopard nervously scratches the bars of its cage.
But it’s hard to say whether this Amur leopard, “the rarest subspecies of this feline”, is reacting to the shrill noise or the now unusual presence of strangers, after more than three weeks of being closed to visitors, Zoo naturalist Viktor Dyakonov told AFP.
The first rocket, which fell on February 27 and which shattered the paving of the walkway along the tiger and polar bear pit, is now in the zoo museum founded more than 120 years ago.
No one was affected, neither among the staff nor among the approximately 4,000 animals claimed by the establishment, but this episode was “particularly stressful, with a battle of tanks 600 meters from the zoo”, indicates the voluble director, Volodymyr Topchy.
Since then, three other rockets have fallen in the zoo, including one in the aviary of the bustard, a rare bird appearing on the traditional coat of arms of Ukraine.
Two of these machines are lined up along a wall of the administration building. These are “Hurricane” type rockets, cluster munitions, according to zoo staff.
The UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have denounced the use of submunitions by the Russian army, particularly in North-East Ukraine, prohibited by the 2008 Oslo Convention but that Moscow never signed.
Highly inaccurate, wide-area dispersal cluster munitions (BASMs) hit a huge proportion of civilians and can kill and maim long after hostilities have ended because not all of them explode immediately.
– Threatened species –
Of some 400 species represented in the zoo, nearly half are listed on the world’s red list of endangered species, said the director.
But their evacuation of the city, connected by a bridge over the southern Bug River to the rest of the territory still controlled by the Ukrainian army, would currently be impossible.
“There are not enough means of transport to transport the animals, especially since the only road to Odessa is very congested”, explains Volodymyr Topchy.
“And it’s still very cold, if we take the giraffes, the elephants, the hippos… they might not survive,” he adds, ruling out abandoning them.
Despite the difficulties, around a hundred staff members continue to “work heroically”, sometimes sleeping on the spot to avoid random and perilous journeys, he continues.
This is the case of the naturalist, Viktor Dyakonov, who settled there with his wife, a veterinarian.
“To come from where I live you have to cross a bridge which is lowered and raised at indefinite times. So I have no certainty of being able to go to work”, he says. “That’s why my wife and I have decided to stay at the zoo for a while, while the situation is so unstable.”
Overall, the residents of the zoo continue to “lead a quiet existence”, says a caretaker, Olga, observing the female hippopotamus, Rikky, who snorts lazily in her basin.
“Today our animals are eating and reproducing, they are doing well”, assures the director.
On March 8, under intense bombardments, a female leopard even gave birth to a baby, he congratulates himself: “it’s spring, the births are about to begin”.