BION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WAR
On February 24, 2022, BION Terrarium Center transformed overnight from a standard breeding facility into Emergency Infrastructure.
When the War Came
The invasion left no transition period. Within the first five days, fighting cut off access to enclosures, resulting in the loss of over 100 lizards to dehydration. Daily shelling, air raids, fuel shortages, and curfews created severe logistical barriers. To ensure continuous care, staff began living on-site in 3-to-5-day shifts—adapting a protocol briefly tested during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
Life-Support Under Fire
Energy grid strikes and blackouts posed constant risks to climate-sensitive species. Additionally, sourcing live feeder insects and produce became difficult during the initial weeks. When a key partner's laboratory near Kharkiv was destroyed in the frontline zone, BION evacuated and integrated the people and surviving breeding stock into its facility.
The "Noah's Ark" Imperative
BION chose to remain in Ukraine rather than evacuate abroad. Relocating a complex collection—ranging from tiny geckos to rhinoceros iguanas—requires specialized staff, tailored infrastructure, and established live-food production that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere. While a reserve site in a country(Ekzo Zoo) housed part of the collection, full international evacuation remained a last resort. Every team member chose to stay, maintaining care for captive-bred populations that represent an important part of global ex-situ groups for several species.
What makes BION’s wartime situation extraordinary is not just that the animals survived, but that research and development continued uninterrupted. Breeding records, husbandry protocols, and documentation were maintained at pre-war standards.
Since 1993 BION has bred over 150 species of reptiles and amphibians. Today, roughly 90% of the collection is captive-bred—a milestone built over three decades that the war did not diminish. Core long-term Project continued alongside crisis management:
- Breeding program for 12 chameleon species, including work on Parson’s Chamaeleon (Calumma parsonii )localities with long-term partner Sergey Prokopiev.
- Dedicated research on Challenging species (like Uromastyx, Xenagama, Microlophus, Petrosaurus, Lophosaurus, Hypsilurus, Diploglossus, Zamenis situla, Gonyosoma margaritum, Geochelone elegans and many others.
- A decade-long Leaf-tailed Gecko’s (Uroplatus species) breeding program yielding published articles and husbandry protocols.
Shielding the Uroplatus The genus Uroplatus — Madagascar leaf-tailed geckos—exemplifies BION’s expertise with demanding species. Wild exports are strictly limited by CITES quotas, and captive-hatched specimens require up to three years to reach sexual maturity, making stable lines quite complicated to establish and maintain.
Despite nearly losing one of the world's largest captive Uroplatus collections during the first weeks of the invasion, BION restored and expanded output beyond pre-war levels within three years. Notably, the Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus )breeding program alone produced a couple of hundreds of captive-bred juveniles in a single season.
The People Who Stayed
Behind BION’s wartime survival was a dedicated team operating under extreme conditions. Our part lived inside the laboratory for roughly 80 days to care for the collection when surrounding areas were impassable and her husband was unable to rejoin her from abroad. Other team members relocated to Bulgaria and Germany, maintaining operations, communications, and partner coordination remotely. At the height of the disruption, approximately 80% of the team remained active.
This resilience builds on BION’s founding philosophy. Dmitri Tkachev developed BION over three decades from an import-export operation into a global, research-focused institution active in international conferences and field trips. That long-term vision made holding the line in 2022 a direct extension of the center’s core mission.
Emergency Herpetoculture
Navigating active conflict forced BION to develop specialized operational practices: maintaining climate control without grid power, making critical hold-or-evacuate decisions, and running protocols with skeleton crews on extended shifts.
BION has formalized these methods as Emergency Herpetoculture — a wartime framework within its broader Responsible Herpetoculture model. Created for keepers and institutions facing conflict, natural disasters, or infrastructure collapse, it fills a crucial gap in herpetological literature where stable power and supply chains are otherwise assumed.
What Happened Next
Critical international support arrived during the war’s early months from BION’s followers all over the world, the German Society of Herpetologists and Terrariumists (DGHT), Zoo Med Laboratories Inc, and the Association of Zoos of Ukraine. Cross-border logistics were restored through cooperation among Ukraine's Ministry of Environmental Protection, Poland's Ministry of Climate and Environment, and Moldova's Ministry of Environment, which maintained streamlined transit routes to resume export operations.
The subsequent recovery exceeded expectations. Between 2022 and 2026, BION produced over 100,000 captive-bred specimens, integrating the bloodlines rescued from the Kharkiv laboratory. Additionally, in March 2022, BION launched the Responsible Herpetoculture Journal as an educational and ethical public platform .
Stand With BION
The war continues, and so does BION's work. The center expands its breeding programs and maintains meticulous documentation to ensure complete transparency.
For zoos, breeders, and private keepers, BION offers unmatched provenance backed by a team that protected its collection under fire.
Ongoing partnerships, sponsorships, and direct support remain vital to sustaining our work!