A mating date for two polar bears went badly wrong at a Russian zoo when the male suddenly killed the female as she rejected him as they were poised to copulate.
Aurora had been moved 1,900 miles from Krasnoyarsk in Siberia to Izhevsk in the Urals to be introduced to giant male Baloo. Perhaps there was a clue of trouble ahead in their first meeting when a video shows how she inspected the male, before turning and walking in the opposite direction.
Yet during a two week "courtship" they played, basked in the sun, and swam together, and it appeared Aurora was "receptive".
Keepers watched and waited for the key moment – but it ended in tragedy. Head of Royev Ruchey zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Andrey Gorban, said: "At the very moment he mounted her,
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