(Newswire.net — August 7, 2016) — A video recorded in Russia’s Far East showing a man throwing a helpless dog to a polar bear while others laugh, drew a lot of attention.
An online petition urging authorities to locate and arrest the man who threw ‘man’s best friend’ to a polar bear has gained more than 17,000 signatures. If arrested, the man could face 7 years in prison.
The video that went viral shows the person laughing as he picks up the petrified dog and hurls it towards the polar bear which was lying behind a container. The fate of the dog is unknown.
Other voices can be heard in the footage, laughing and cheering, however, one female voice can be heard shouting “don’t kill him.”
The man, ignoring the woman, then swings the petrified dog towards the bear that attacked immediately. Fortunately the dog is faster than a wild animal and presumably managed to run away.
The man can be heard saying “he ran away,” followed by more laughter in background.
According to RIA Novosti, the video that emerged last week was actually shot in 2011 in Chukotka, in the village of Mys Shmidta. According to Anatoly Konchnev, from the Institute of Biological Problems, the video actually showed a fragment of the wider picture describing an incident where a drunken woman lying on the ground was attacked by a polar bear.
Another video allegedly shows the same story from another angle. The polar bear attacked a woman who was curled over, screaming in pain. Suddenly, she stood up and walked away with torn pants around her ankles. It seemed as though she was drunk, however, the same look and walk can be caused by a state of shock.
There are many clues that say that the two videos represent two different incidents because of different background noises. While the polar bear attacked the woman, car sirens can be heard and people throwing small objects toward the animal, but no one threw a dog.