BION Terrarium Center – Chronicle of the War Year
At 4:00 AM of February 24, 2022 Russian Federation started a full-scale war against Ukraine; it invaded our beautiful peaceful country from North, East and South. Since this date the life of Ukrainian people has dramatically changed for worse.
Martial law and curfew were immediately imposed in Ukraine, including Kyiv. The municipal transport stopped. The subway has become a bomb shelter. Due to the threat of seizure and bombardment of Kyiv, a huge number of people left the capital of Ukraine during the first days of war, including two employees of BION office and their children.
Mobility around the city was quite limited, to say nothing about intercity travel.
As a result, during the first 5 days of war there was only one guard in the BION facility in Kyiv. Animals were left unattended and without care; regretfully, some of them died. On day 6 we managed to evacuate almost all leaf-tailed geckos out of the city, in place where they could be handled safely. The same day, two employees came to work, then one more. For one week we stayed in BION 24 hours a day, trying to provide maximum care to the animals.
The danger of shelling and explosions that occurred constantly in our area. We witnessed shelling and destruction of buildings in the neighborhood. At first, every hour we had to go down to the basement following the siren of air raid alert. A big problem was getting employees to/from work; some walked all the way, having spent several hours to get to BION. Therefore, we organized shifts when our guys lived in and worked at BION facilities for 3-5 days in succession. We did the same during lockdown in 2019. Another problem was and still is the search for and purchase of food. During the first two weeks there was a shortage of fuel for cars, while the curfew limited working hours.
Just on the day the war began, we had to wake up many animals from hibernation; due to its forced prolongation this resulted in significant unexpected problems and loses. We have to admit that this year, due to the war and evacuation, the results of our breeding leave much to be desired.
Despite the fact that all our breeding plans were spoilt, we did manage to breed Uroplatus phantasticus, U. henkeli, U. giganteus, U. ebenaui, Bavaia robusta, Mniarogekko chahoua, Chamaeleolis porcus, Timon lepidus, Uromastyx ornata, U. philbyi, U. dispar flavifasciata, Eublepharis angramainyu, Eu. fuscus, Eu. hardwickii, Nephrurus levis, Xenagama taylori, Microlophus albemarlensis, Chlamydosaurus kingii, Hypsilurus magnus, Petrosaurus thallasinus, Egernia stokkessi.
Unfortunately, we failed to breed Cyclura cornuta, Hydrosaurus pustulatus and Tiliqua species.
In these extremely complicated conditions BION team behaved with dignity. As was mentioned above, at first two, and later three of our employees supported the life at BION facility in Kyiv, on the best effort basis. Other members of our team looked after the evacuated animals at Ekzorancho – an Educational and Research Center called “Responsible Zooculture” (“Ekzorancho” in short), which we launched in 2017 and located 40 miles away from the Ukrainian capital.
Since March 2022 Ekzorancho has been turned into a real Noah's ark, where we keep large reptiles such as monitors, iguanas, sailfin dragons and tortoises.
BION Terrarium Center possesses a unique collection of animals (consisting of 2000 heads of breeding stock). Some species were introduced into herpetoculture owing to our efforts. We are running successful long-term and promising breeding programs for many rare species.
The Russian invasion crushed many of our plans and expectations.
Part of BION’s stock was relocated to Ekzorancho.
We also evacuated and host at BION’s Ekzorancho the Ekzoland Zoo and the EKZO Zoo nursery – about 80 primates, including lemurs, tamarins and marmosets, fennec foxes, civets, meerkats, mongooses, kinkajou and other exotic mammal species.
Despite the war, the Research and Development Department, an information, methodological and scientific base of BION, was fully operational all the time.
A real achievement of BION’s team and their international partners was launching the Responsible Herpetoculture Project (RHP).
https://responsibleherpetoculture.com.ua/
Ironically, our project was conceived in peacetime but launched in March 2022 during the Russian invasion to Ukraine. Despite the rocket attacks and the blackouts in Ukraine, we met our deadlines and managed to release the first six issues of the Responsible Herpetoculture Journal https://responsibleherpetoculture.com.ua/category/rhp-journal/
This has been achieved thanks to the participation and contributions of our wonderful authors and team members from all over the world to whom we offer our heartfelt gratitude for their support.
In addition to a potential military threat, our main risk today is the lack of reserve funds in order to live through the economic blockade. Due to the war, airlines stopped flying to/from Ukraine; till August, 2022 we had no opportunity to ship and receive animals. However, since early-August, we have been able to arrange our first shipments through neighboring Poland. Currently this mechanism is successfully working. This year we were successful in making several shipments to Japan, Korea, EU and the USA.
Also, we have 30 people on staff who are to be paid with at least basic salary; some of them have been staying with us for over 15 years.
During February-March 2022, BION was supported by donations from our colleagues and followers (including different companies, foundations and institutions from all over the world
https://bion.com.ua/bion-supporters/
Special thanks to everybody who helped us at this terrible time!
Last June we gave refuge to Sergei Prokopiev and Nelly Kuzmenko – our partners and friends, whose breeding facilities near Kharkiv (their home city) were completely destroyed by Russian army. These brave people together with animals from their collection which managed to survive the occupation are now an integral part of BION. A valuable part of their collection was saved, including jewelled lizards, bearded dragons, veiled chameleons, skinks and crested geckos.
https://www.facebook.com/1479153242344123/posts/
In July 2022 issue the Reptile Magazine published my interview about BION's life during the war, which you can read at: https://bion.com.ua/bion-in-the-middle-of-the-war/
The war unleashed by Russian Federation is still going on and Ukraine is still fighting for its freedom! Unable to win at the front line, since October 10 the Russian army has launched regular rocket attacks, having destroyed energy infrastructure and endangering the civilian population, primarily children, women and the elderly.
During November–December 2022, we have to heat our animals using generators (spending a lot of money for fuel) and gas heaters.
Under these conditions, the Association of Zoos of Ukraine (AZU), with the support of Western partners, is doing everything to help zoos and breeding centers in Ukraine.
With the help of like-minded people all over the world and Association of Zoos of Ukraine we still survive the blackouts, cold winter weather, difficulties in business and other consequences of this awful war.
We do our best to save our unique collection, lives of our animals, job of our staff as well as our achievements.
We are still operating to support economy of our country by paying taxes, while providing our staff with salaries is as important as military supplies and motivated soldiers.
From the beginning of Russian invasion and till the moment of publication of this post our main goal is not only to survive, but to return back occupied territories, peace and people, who had to flee Ukraine.
It now appears, that the war in Ukraine is unpredictable and promises new challenges. Any war is not an adventure, but disaster and risky survival experience that not everyone can endure. Our colleague Nelly Kuzmenko managed to hold out and keep under fire 1000 reptiles for 80 days.
We even coined the term ”Emergency Herpetoculture”
https://bion.com.ua/emergency-herpetoculture-from-nelly-kuzmenko/
We wish Ukraine and all our allies a peaceful sky in the New Year!
Dmitri Tkachev
On behalf of BION TEAM