Russia shows soft side, joins US in polar bear campaign

Relations between Russia and the US may be icy given recent disputes over child adoptions and the Magnitsky Act, but the two countries have found an area to collaborate on: polar bears. Both countries are calling for greater protection for polar bears under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a global treaty on endangered species, which up for review this week in Bangkok, The New York Times reported.

“It really seems that both countries were willing to put aside their differences in order to work together to help save the polar bear,” said Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The move is in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that 2013 would be the “Year of the Environment in Russia”.

The world’s polar bear population has dwindled to between 20,000 and 25,000 because of climate change. Russia and the US will push for an international ban on commercial trade in skins, furs and other items made from bears. However, Canada and Denmark, on behalf of Greenland, have said they will oppose the ban. Norway has not yet revealed which way it plans to vote.

One of two of the rare white Bengal tiger cubs born last year. Photograph: RIA Novosti

The news comes on the back of another animal-related announcement. On Sunday, The Hindu reported that the Delhi Zoo would soon be receiving a pair of pumas from Krasnoyarsk Biota Park in Siberia in exchange for a white tigress.

Last July, two rare white Bengal tiger cubs were born in a zoo in Yekaterinburg.