The story happened in 2017, in the Republic of Karelia, Russia. A mother bear and her two cubs were swimming across the lake, when the mother, halfway through, realized that she had overestimated her strength and turned back. Unfortunately, the cubs started drowning. All of a sudden, they saw a fishing boat and they realized that it was their only salvation. The cubs clung to the boat and their eyes begged for help. The fishermen were scared of the bears, but they knew they had to do something to help them.
“They were swimming with their mother, and suddenly we saw that she was tired and swam back. And the cubs began to drown. We dragged them out with difficulty and took them to the island where their mother was heading. Of course, it was scary, of course, this is a dangerous action. But they are living beings, we could not abandon them, could not pretend that we did not see them”, explains Ruslan Lukanin, one of the fishermen.
One of the cubs was pulled into the boat with a net, while the other one held on to the net while the boat sailed towards land. The brave fishermen cheered the bears all the way to land. The cubs arrived safely to one of the islands, where their mother swam away.
The fishermen hope that the cubs will soon reunite with their mother and they’ll live a happy life.
