Stray animal catastrophe as they freeze to death on streets of the world’s coldest city

Volunteers of Yakutsk call for urgent action to resolve the critical situation with stray animals falling victim of bone-breaking December weather.

In the past two weeks the capital city of the Republic of Sakha, the world’s coldest inhabited region, has seen temperatures plunging to -50C. 

While this is not an unusual situation for the hardy locals, who keep schools operating for primary age children in -52C in the village of Oymyakon, stray animals cannot bear such cold. 

Local volunteer group volontery_ykt with more than ten thousand supporters has been busy flagging cases of stray animals left outside. 

Their call for help came too late for a tragic mother cat, filmed meowing in the snow; she froze to death several hours later along with her litter. 

Video: Volontery_Ykt

At least one dog froze to death, too, with dozens seen helplessly waiting to be allowed by the blocks of flats, shops, or sleeping in the snow.

Many of the dogs have a numbered ear tags, signifying that they went through obligatory vaccination and neutering according to Russia’s new law on stray animals.

Yakutsk veterinarian authorities have said several days ago that they stopped releasing tagged stray animals.

But clearly some of them were already sent out when the big cold arrived. 

At least one dog froze to death, with dozens seen helplessly waiting to be allowed by the blocks of flats, shops, or sleeping in the snow. Pictures: Volontery_Ykt

By the beginning of December some 1,550 stray animals were neutered and tagged in the Republic of Yakutia.

Of these, 1,212 were released back on the streets. 

There are no clear statistics on how many stray animals live in Yakutsk. 

'One of the biggest issues with implementing the new law is the absence of shelters. There are two municipal shelters in Mirninsky and Lensky districts, and one private shelter in Aldansky district’, said the head of Republic’s veterinary department Petr Petrov. 

The currently-existing facility in Yakutsk does not meet the requirements of shelters, he said.

Cats and dogs are left at the mercy of extremely cold weather reaching -50C with no proper animal winter shelter in Yakutsk. Pictures: Alexander Dersu, Prokopy Nogovitsyn, Volontery_Ykt