People who go around ‘tagging’ walls are clearly lacking something in their lives.

As for the people who spray-painted a polar bear in Russia – who knows, because it’s all a bit of a mystery.

The first footage of the polar bear appeared two days ago, and shows the bear with ‘T-34’ emblazoned across its back.

It’s suspected that is a reference to the T-34 tank, which played a vital role in the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Here’s the bear on the move:

If it doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal to you, consider this from the BBC:

Experts warned the stunt could affect the animal’s ability to blend in with its surroundings and hunt for food…

The press officer for WWF Russia, Daria Buyanova, told the BBC that seeing the images was “quite a shock” and that the inscription “looks like a bad joke”.

A scientist at the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Anatoly Kochnev, said it was unlikely that the bear could have been painted without it being sedated.

He said the bear could not have been mobile, or at least must have been quite still while it was being sprayed because “the characters are evenly written and are all the same size”.

He suggested the incident may have taken place in the remote Russian region of Novaya Zemlya, where a team of specialists had earlier sedated polar bears that had been wandering into populated areas.

The spray-paint could well take weeks to wash off, and that is likely to be highly damaging to the bear’s chances of catching prey in the Arctic snow at a vital time of year.

In short, someone should have just spray-painted the underside of a bridge, like a normal hoodlum, instead of marking an animal that may now suffer.

Speculation in various Russian media outlets links the act to a recent rise in anger at the number of polar bears coming into contact with remote communities.

To that, I would say the bears were there first.

[source:bbc]