Vitaly Nikolayenko, one of Russia’s most experienced bear experts, spent months on end in the wilderness, documenting the bears’ habits and making hundreds of journal entries
A bear researcher who spent decades living among the animals was found dead after a savage mauling – leaving a final journal entry for investigators to find.
Vitaly Nikolayenko, one of Russia’s most experienced bear experts, was fascinated by brown bears and lived in a one-room hut on the banks of the Tikhaya River where he could observe the enormous creatures. He was a senior ranger in the country’s Kronotsky Wildlife Reserve and spent months living out a solitary existence the wilderness, documenting the bears’ habits.
He recorded sightings in hundreds of journal entries, making an average of 800 bear contacts each year. However, Vitaly’s fascination with the animals would ultimately prove to be his downfall. In December 2003, he was waiting for a helicopter to take him out of the reserve in snowy, oppressive conditions. However, when the crew arrived to pick Vitaly up he was nowhere to be found.
Tourism guide Victor Rebrikov told the Los Angeles Times that Vitaly had followed a large male bear to a lake close to his hut. He said: “Vitaly must have begun to take pictures of the resting bear, but the tree trunks and branches were in the way, and he must have decided to get inside the grove. His footprints lead into the grove after the bear. He approached the bear at a distance of three meters.”
At this point, the animal launched its savage attack. An unfired flare gun was found next to his body, a bloodied camera, along with a can of pepper spray which he tried to defend himself with. Victor said that his last journal entry was “a sarcastic remark about weather forecasts”.
Vitaly’s bereaved wife Tatiana said: “I loved him dearly, and he loved me, too. But he had this other passion in his life which was watching bears, and this passion took him away from me…I knew he would come back, and all my life I was waiting for him.” Nikolayenko’s death sent shockwaves through the world of wildlife conservation. Known as “the man who talks to bears,” he clashed with many in the scientific community over his uncommonly close work with wild bears — but no one questioned his courage.
He once told a journalist in Russia: “Sometimes I feel like no one cares about my work. At the reserve, no one cares about my notes and observations. The main thing for them is that I’m here as a scientific entity. I’m sure no one reads my reports.” Describing his relationship with bears, Vitaly said: “It’s a very dangerous and unpredictable animal. You can admire the animal, love it, and think about it. But an animal always thinks only of itself.”
