Why a Ukrainian zoologist risked his life to save 1,000 bats from a bat collider | 24CA News

A Ukrainian zoologist and his crew risked their lives to rescue a whole lot of bats from what’s known as a bat collider in Kharkiv, after Russia invaded the nation final yr.

“Kharkiv is very close to [the] Russian border and, exactly from the window of our office, we saw the smoke of burning Russian tanks in the northern margin of the city,” mentioned Anton Vlashenko, director of the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Centre.

“We had shellings, also we had machine gun fire … [but] it was our responsibility to first save these creatures,” he informed The Current’s Matt Galloway.

The bat collider is an nearly 20-metre-long round tunnel, which might maintain as much as 3,000 bats flying round freely. It was inbuilt a forested space close to Feldman Ecopark, a zoo in Kharviv. It hosts bats throughout their winter hibernation, and conservationists used it to assist injured or new child bats be taught to fly.

WATCH | Inside the ‘bat collider’ in Kharkiv: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJilAZHjCr4

A lot of bats had been moved there simply earlier than the battle began on Feb. 24 final yr. When Russia invaded, Vlashenko and his crew had been unable to replenish meals and water on the collider, as a result of proximity of the violence. (Zoo officers claimed final April that two workers, who stayed to feed the animals, had been shot useless by Russian troopers within the early weeks of the battle).

Despite the challenges, Vlashenko refused to go away the animals to die. He and his crew reached the collider in late March, and had been in a position to rescue 1,000 bats in what he described as “a very, very stressful day.”

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest metropolis, suffered months of shelling earlier than Russian forces had been pushed again out of artillery vary on the finish of final summer season. When Vlashenko spoke to The Current, he mentioned issues had been comparatively peaceable, with constant electrical energy and no rocket assaults for a number of days. 

He sees his work as being about “more than just the bats.”

“It’s our contribution to general resistance,” he mentioned. He sees different Ukrainians additionally making an attempt to proceed with their lives and professions, as near regular as they’ll get.

“We [are] all together keeping our country alive.”

The secret lifetime of bats

Vlashenko has been working with bats for 20 years, first changing into focused on college.

“For me, it was some kind of challenge to go to [the] forest to find their roost and to understand how they live,” he mentioned.

Those encounters assist to unravel the thriller of a bat, who may very well be a “20, 30 year-old creature with a lot of knowledge in their little, little brain,” he mentioned.

Before the battle, his group rescued bats and helped them to outlive Kharkiv’s harsh winters. They captured as much as 3,000 bats annually, inserting them in particular fridges to induce hibernation. The bats are monitored over winter, and fed if wanted, earlier than being launched in spring.

The battle has made that work tougher, with rolling energy cuts in a lot of Ukraine. Bats are additionally flying via damaged home windows into broken buildings, however changing into trapped and unable to search out their approach again out.

“They simply die because of starvation,” Vlashenko mentioned.

His crew of conservationists have been going from constructing to constructing to rescue these bats, and put them safely in hibernation gadgets. As the battle drags on and winter units in, they’ve resorted to caring for a few of the bats in their very own houses, even inserting them in fabric luggage in their very own fridges, to induce hibernation. 

Biological weapons allegation

Last March, the conservationists had been accused of creating organic weapons by Russian navy officers.

Russia alleged that Ukraine and the U.S. had been conducting joint navy organic analysis, involving samples of bat parasites.

“They mentioned that it was like 140 containers with bad parasites that would be spread somewhere in Russia, and attack Russian soldiers,” Vlashenko mentioned.

In November, the UN Security Council rejected Russia’s try to determine a fee to research the claims, with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, describing the claims as a “disinformation campaign” to distract from the battle.

Vlashenko mentioned the accusations had been a “fairy tale.” Those containers do exist, however they’re samples of parasites saved in ethanol, and pose no danger to anybody, he mentioned.

While in some respects he finds the accusations laughable, he additionally worries that if Russia did seize Kharkiv, he and his crew may be topic to interrogation and even torture.

His mom has requested him if he would possibly depart Kharkiv for his personal security, however he isn’t keen to go away his work behind, calling the thought of fleeing “the greatest nightmare.”

“Just imagine that we simply leave and all these bats just die inside those refrigerators, without electricity,” he mentioned.

“I couldn’t imagine. We have responsibility for these creatures.”