A criminal investigation has been opened into a group of men who filmed themselves killing a bear in Siberia by running over it with off-road vehicles.
A video posted on YouTube on Monday and apparently filmed on a mobile phone showed a brown bear being crushed to death in the snow by two heavy duty trucks, of the kind used by oil and mining workers. The video has since been removed.
In the clip, one of the men in the trucks shouts: “Squash him! Squash him!” and squeals as the truck drives back and forth over the bear, Agence France-Presse reported. The men can be heard saying: “It’s still alive”, and are seen poking the bear with a metal rod as it struggles to get out of the snow.
Investigators in the Yakutia region of Russia announced on Wednesday that they had opened a criminal inquiry into the incident. They will be looking into whether the men caused the death of an animal through sadistic treatment, an offence that carries a maximum jail term of two years, Reuters reported.
The investigators said the men were shift workers for a mineral prospecting company. A spokeswoman for the interior ministry told TV reporters they had established that the men were Yakutia residents.
The clip, which was picked up by Russian state media, caused public outrage. “There should be real jail time for this sort of crime!” Sergei Donskoi, Russia’s minister for natural resources and the environment, wrote on social media. “We’ll make sure these villains get the most serious punishment.”
Mining and oil activity in remote territories such as the Siberian Arctic increasingly bring people into conflict with wildlife. Bears can be dangerous, and those that fail to go into hibernation are often shot, legally, if found near towns and villages.
Last year, a video emerged showing a construction worker at an Arctic military base feeding a firecracker to a polar bear, which roared with pain after it exploded in its mouth.