Parents concerned about their children from huge wild cat - or more than one - on the loose, with another terrorising Solontsovy village.
Up to 500 mother bears a year give birth on remote Wrangel island, also the last place to see woolly mammoths.
Driver spots big cat at side of busy road, alerts police, and young male is tranquillised.
The Russian president took part in the 'Flight of Hope', giving a flying lesson to young white cranes ahead of their epic 5,000 km migration.
Many Pacific islands are famed for their palm trees, but Sakhalin is facing some of the heaviest January blizzards in living memory.