Poznan's Zoo accepted animals from the Kiev zoo

Employees of the Kiev zoo were able to take some of their pets to Poland, according to the Daily Mail. After the start of the special operation, the shelter, located near the Kyiv airport, came under fire, and its director, Natalia Popova, decided to save at least some of the animals.

She contacted a zoo in the Polish city of Poznań, arranging a meeting at the border, and then had to make the difficult decision of which of the 80 animals had the best chance of surviving the journey. In the end, six lions, four tigers, an African wild dog and a capuchin monkey were selected. All the animals, as well as tons of food, were loaded into the wagons for transportation, and last Saturday the ark set off.

On the way to Zhitomir, the convoy came under fire and returned. The next day, the column ran into tanks and was forced to take cover away from the road. Zoo staff resumed traffic on Tuesday, changing route several times to avoid bombs and clashes with soldiers, and late Thursday evening the convoy finally crossed the Polish border. Zoo staff posted on social media: “We did it! Everybody is alive! The transition took eight hours in the cold, people and animals are exhausted.

The director of the Poznań Zoo, Ewa Zgrabczynska, later said: “It is not easy to get out of the country in such a situation, as the example of thousands of refugees from Ukraine shows. With animals it's even more difficult. When Natalia called me, I begged her to leave the animals and save my life. She refused".

After the animals rest in the Poznań Zoo, some of them will move on: the zoos in Spain and Belgium have already offered shelter.