A HEARTBROKEN orangutan rescued from under-siege Kharkiv is so traumatised that keepers have given him a TV so he can hear children’s laughter.
The 11-year-old great ape named Krava was taken from a zoo in the north-east of Ukraine where Russian missiles and artillery have blitzed the city.
But despite his 600-mile move to the Limpopo Zoo in Medenychi, west Ukraine, Krava is still in great jeopardy.
At his new home, more than 600 animals face starvation due to its owner rapidly running out of cash.
Serhiy Kostiv took in Krava despite his business being on its knees, with the usually crowded zoo empty and money drying up.
He explained how the orangutan is struggling from his epic journey – and arriving at a desolate new home.
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The owner said: “We had to dust down a television and turn it on to try and cheer him up.
“Krava loves the children’s channels and sits watching it all day. In the absence of any excitable kids making his day by visiting the zoo, he smiles up watching cartoons.
“Krava is actually lucky. Most of the roads are too dangerous to transport big animals, and many wardens have fled.”
Without paying customers, the 600 creatures at Mr Kostiv’s zoo – including nine lions, 11 tigers, leopards, jaguars and bears – face a perilous future.
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The 49-year-old showed The Sun around his empty attraction, which is normally bustling with over 85,000 visitors a year.
He said: “If nothing changes by the summer it will be very, very difficult here. I hardly have any savings. I fear the worst.
"We will try to find other homes for my animals but I don’t know if it will be possible. It is looking bleak.”
It takes £6,800 to run his 20-acre zoo and feed its 210 different types of animals each month.
Empty picnic tables and closed kiosks are symbolic of the problems facing the zoo as war rages on.
Mr Kostiv, owner of the zoo since 2008, told The Sun: “It’s a desperate situation for us all. We love animals and want to help them. But I don’t know how we will survive.
“It might sound strange but the animals seem depressed without any visitors. There is definite disappointment. It’s so quiet.
“Maybe the animals sense the fears of me and my staff. I do think they have psychological needs.
“We have four wolves who have been very sad with no-one here. We try to cheer them up by spending time with them.”
Amid the eerily quiet zoo, the lions and tigers register barely a whimper. Even the 90 monkeys in an enclosure have stopped their playful cries.
A Himalayan brown bear lolls around on its own in a bare enclosure without anything to stimulate it. An ocelot spotted wild cat – the only one of its kind in Ukraine – sleeps all day.
Surveying the grim scene, Mr Kostiv, who has had Russian missiles landing at military targets near his zoo, said: “There are usually school trips and my zoo is a happy place full of the sounds of laughter and excited kids. Now it is a ghost town and you can hear a pin drop.
“We have to believe the war will end soon before it’s too late for the animals. We hope and pray.”
Conservation charities have been able to rehome some animals from Ukraine's 14 zoos in neighbouring Poland amid the raging conflict.
But many vulnerable animals are forced to remain in their enclosures as the threat from Russian artillery and air strikes makes it impossible to take them elsewhere.
Krava came from an enclosure in Kharkiv which has faced relentless bombardment since Russia began it's invasion.
A witness says the centre city is "frozen like a page in history, standing still for the world to see", Al Jazeera reported.
Just days ago Russian forces fired rockets at a nuclear research facility in the besieged city, Ukrainian officials have claimed.
The same site was attacked by Russian troops earlier this month.
'FORGOTTEN FACE'
Mr Kostiv says animals "are the forgotten face of the Russian invasion".
Experts say that loading highly stressed animals into crates and transporting them across noisy and complicated conflict zones can cause severe illness or death.
Samantha Ward, a senior lecturer in animal science at Nottingham Trent University, said the current conflict is likely to have a “terrifying impact” on zoo animals.
“Even in normal circumstances, moving zoo animals is not an easy task, animal transportation can have negative impacts to the animal’s welfare,” she said in an academic article.
“Animals undergoing transportation can experience dehydration, fatigue, behavioural changes and stress.
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“Research has also shown that animals form relationships with the keepers and so this might have additional welfare implications if animals are moved under stressful conditions to new locations.
“As the war continues, there have been reports of zoo animals being killed in the blasts and 'many animals dead with others roaming the streets', including lions, but these reports have not been verified by zoos,” she said.
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