Vitaly Nikolayenko - Controversy

Controversy

Despite making a life's work of harassing poachers and monitoring bears, Nikolayenko was a polarising figure within the naturalist community, which had an institutionally unfavourable view of his pro-active approach to monitoring bears. His overt familiarity with his subject went against the grain of the more passive method known in the field as "separation" which is largely the consensus in ethologist circles.

Nikolayenko insisted that he never underestimated the bear's potential for ferocity and resisted the urge to ascribe human emotions to the animals. Even Dobrynya, he accepted, probably only tolerated his presence.

But his death was looked upon by his critics as confirmation of their position and the bears who became habituated to Nikolayenko's presence were easy pickings for poachers. At least 20 bears Nikolayenko knew were killed about seven months before his own death.

Nikolayenko also fought a war of words with the man with whom he probably had more in common than anyone in Kamchatka: Charlie Russell, a researcher who operated in the south Kamchatka reserve. Russell and Nikolayenko clashed when the Russian ranger was called in to review Russell's project.

Nikolayenko strongly objected to Russell's policy of feeding half-grown cubs, arguing that it rendered the research meaningless and had the potential to make the cubs dangerously eager for human handouts. Russell felt the cubs needed the kind of nourishment they would have received from their mother to make them strong enough to fend off predators. The men argued bitterly throughout their acquaintance.