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Natalia Popova is the head of the charitable foundation “Poryatunok Dykykh Tvaryn” (“Rescue of Wild Animals”). Before the war, the animals in their care were usually treated and released into the wild or sent to rehabilitation centers. Now Natalia travels all over Ukraine, rescuing animals literally from under the bombs and transporting them to Europe.
When the war started, I had 7 tigers, 6 lions, 2 caracals, 6 foxes, bears, and a dog. There was also a deer and a roe deer. The roe deer was killed by an explosion — it slammed into a wall and broke its neck. On the second or third day, the bombing got really intense. A lot of my animals were injured, including the lions and tigers. They were flying around, smashing their heads against the walls.
The bombing started right with us — we’re located not far from Boryspil Airport. The strikes hit right in our area. I’ve been reacting badly to fireworks for years already. Horses are terrified of them. We’d play loud music so the animals wouldn’t hear. And then on the 24th of February, around four in the morning, there was this massive blast. I rush out thinking it’s fireworks. I run outside because, pardon the language, I need to figure out whose head to crack. I run toward the stables, and the security guard comes toward me and says: “They’re bombing.” I say: “Are you crazy? Who’s bombing?” He says: “Russia.”
It was terrible stress. Animals are terrified of sudden loud sounds. I was running around among them too, because they were all going wild, and you can’t calm everyone down at once.
I’m immensely grateful to the international foundations. I was introduced to Ewa Zgrabczyńska, the director of the Poznań Zoo. She said: “Bring the animals to me immediately. We’ll take everyone, we’ll arrange everything.” She contacted customs authorities. I didn’t even have passports for them — the documents were at the clinic, and I couldn’t get them from there. This saint, Ewa Zgrabczyńska, arranged passage across the border and took in the animals.
As soon as I sent off my own animals, I offered evacuation to the Feldman Ecopark and the XII Months Zoo. They declined at that point. I suppose they thought everything would be fine. Who wouldn’t want to believe that?
At Feldman’s, two workers were later killed. When the military moved in, they couldn’t find these workers anywhere. Everyone thought they’d run away, but then they were found dead in some room. It was clear they’d been shot.
Then people started reaching out from everywhere: “Help, save them.” Somewhere a lion had been abandoned, somewhere a tiger, someone else. I was already coordinating with the military, arranging corridors wherever it was even remotely possible. There were a lot of abandoned animals, and we pulled them out.
On April 22, I came from Kramatorsk. There was a lioness living in a private home. The owner had left, just abandoned her and fled. When Ukrainian soldiers entered the house and saw her, they sent word through the mayor of Kramatorsk. He contacted an animal protection organization, and they alerted me. We drove up and took her. In cases like Kramatorsk, it’s terrifying. Nobody agrees to go to such zones. So I had to learn the trade myself — I do the anesthesia on my own.
Sedation is only needed to transfer the animals into a transport cage. You administer anesthesia, move them into the transport cage, bring them out of sedation, check that everything’s fine, load them into the vehicle, and go. With lions and tigers, quick loading is impossible. Our record was in Kramatorsk. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, 16 minutes had passed. We had to bring the animal out of anesthesia on the road.
People ask me: “Aren’t you scared?” I say: “Of course I’m scared.” It’s just that some people are scared and don’t go, while others are scared and go. That’s the difference. When we were evacuating animals from Yasnohorodka, bombs were hitting a hangar 100 meters away on one side, and about 70–80 meters on the other. In between — us, grabbing whatever animals we could. We transported llamas, alpacas, some meerkats, cows, camels from there.
It’s not as scary the first time you go there as when you’ve already seen it — and you’re going back a second time. Yasnohorodka was simply razed to the ground. I mean the village. The entire farm was completely bombed out. There was an enormous number of corpses. And not just from explosions — many had died of starvation. Russian soldiers and Chechens had been stationed right there, on that same farm. No one from the Ukrainian side could get in. Later, we picked up some animals in a lying-down state, emaciated. The scene there was definitely not for the faint of heart.
I travel with the military, of course, not on my own. We were lucky because among the soldiers there turned out to be many animal lovers. They escort us every time. I know how to handle the animals, but I don’t know how to navigate entry routes. I give them the coordinates of where we need to go, and they help me get there.
Several times we simply fled from shelling. I’d go in with a group of soldiers. Many armed people would form a perimeter, guarding the loading, but they can’t protect you from bombs. But they’re amazing — their intelligence must work well, because they’d shout, for example: “Three minutes, and you’d better not be here.” We’d jump in the vehicle and drive off, and three and a half minutes later, a strike hit that exact spot.
I’ve transported about 200 animals already. Now we’re about to send off 17 lions and 2 bears. These are from the Odesa Biopark and the Feldman Ecopark. I also have 65 horses, 12 cows and bison. A bunch of llamas and alpacas, rams. And every empty space we fill with cats and dogs. Everything that fits in the vehicle.
It’s not ideal, of course, that the animals travel together — wild ones with domestic ones. Obviously we partition them off so they can’t see each other, but they can certainly smell each other. Someone asked me to send a dog that was barking non-stop, around the clock. It traveled with the lions and bears. Hasn’t barked since. But now it lives with a good family, everything is wonderful, and they love it.
Wild animals react to the bombing much more severely than domestic ones. We rescued antelope from Yasnohorodka, and neither survived. We did everything we could, but the fear wouldn’t subside. It destroys everything, then irreversible processes set in and nothing can be done. We put them on IVs, tried everything. Both were lost.
In conditions like these, you work as best you can. Sometimes correctly, sometimes not. I go out without a veterinarian — that’s not right. I never know what condition the animal is in. It’s a very risky situation. But thank God, we’ve been lucky. At this point you take risks because there’s no other option. Nobody agreed to go to Kramatorsk.
Right now my problem is anesthesia supplies. No matter how much they send me, they run out catastrophically fast. What are 2 vials when I’m loading 10 lions at a time? It’s nothing. We desperately need dart syringes. We were transporting a lioness from Kramatorsk — she ate two darts and that was it. Dart syringes are simply impossible to find in our country; it’s not a matter of money. But the Poles, for example, help us a lot.
I won’t die of modesty, but if I don’t help these animals, nobody will. We’re going to evacuate all of them. I didn’t accumulate animals in peacetime either, and certainly not now. The one thing that’s not entirely bad about the war — fewer wild animals will end up in private hands, though ideally there should be none at all. People usually refuse to give them up and think it’s perfectly normal to keep them in an empty enclosure, convinced they love the animal and it’s living well. How do you explain to people? The animal needs space, it has natural needs that must be met. People don’t want to think about it or hear about it.
I actually feel happy when I later see them on video and in photos — how they live in their own climate, on natural ground, with tons of enrichment toys, enclosures of one and a half hectares. That, I believe, is love. That’s where I send them. You have to find positive things, because being devastated all the time — that’s not right.
