(CNN program April 10, 2006)

Topic: Grizzly Rehabilitation Project

COLLINS: Bear hunters are out to kill, paying thousands of dollars to rouse bears from hibernation and then turn them into trophies. Animal rights activists are firing back.

COLLINS: Every winter in Russia, hundreds of bear cubs starve or freeze to death after their mothers are awakened from hibernation and killed by hunters. Others are fighting back, trying to help the cubs.

CNN’s Matthew Chance reports. But, first, a warning, you might find some of this video difficult to watch.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep in the Russian winter, bear hunters are out to kill. Russia’s rich pay thousands of dollars to trek through this frozen wilderness in search of a trophy.

Asleep inside their snow-covered dens, the bears are hibernating. So dogs are sent in to wake them. The hunters just stand back, triggers ready, and wait for the kill.

Winter den hunting isn’t illegal in Russia. Thousands of bears are killed like this every year.

But at last, the consequences of provoking calls for a change in Russian law.

In the den, the unintended victims of the hunt. It was a female bear they shot. A mother whose cubs must be rescued or perish. They’re pulled out one by one.

Toothless and vulnerable. Some are taken as pets or sold to zoos or circuses. Most just freeze to death.

Hunters like Moscow Businessman Igor Dvorkin say the thrill of the hunt outweighs any sympathy for the animals they kill.

IGOR DVORKIN, HUNTER (through translator): If you hit the target, you feel it for a few seconds or even minutes. After it is all over you feel devastated, just like after you’ve won a game or spent a night of passion with somebody you care for.

CHANCE: Professor Vanentin Pozhotnov runs an orphan bear cub rehabilitation project in remote western Russia, funded by a U.S. charity. About a dozen cubs a year are handed in by hunters. Reintroduction into the wild is the goal.PROFESSOR VALENTIN POZHOTNOV, CONSERVATIONIST (through translator): The biggest problem with raising bears is making sure they retain a fear of humans. Animals who are scared of people can settle down in the wild quite well. But if we fail to develop this fear factor, our whole effort goes down the drain.

CHANCE: The professor’s techniques have proved a success. At feeding times, staff wear bear scented overalls and gloves to hide the smell of humans. Contact is kept to a minimum. I can only speak in a whisper.

(On camera): Already this project has succeeded in returning more than 130 of these incredible animals back to the wild. That’s still only a small proportion of the orphaned bear cubs that are brought here every year as a result of winter den hunting.

(Voice-over): All along the roads in this region, 300 miles from Moscow, evidence of how bears fuel the local economy. It’s not just the rich who hunt. Bear skins can fetch hundreds of dollars. Bear fat is also sold. It’s meant to possess healing qualities. For many Russians, hunting is their sole income.

(Voice-over): All along the roads in this region, 300 miles from Moscow, evidence of how bears fuel the local economy. It’s not just the rich who hunt. Bear skins can fetch hundreds of dollars. Bear fat is also sold. It’s meant to possess healing qualities. For many Russians, hunting is their sole income.Trekking through the forest, Professor Pozhonov’s son, Sergi (ph), shows us how the cubs they’ve raised are now hibernating in the wild.

Russia’s bear population has fallen by 30,000 in the past 15 years. This project restocks areas of Russia where bear numbers have fallen dangerously low.

Each animal is radio tagged so progress can be closely monitored.

The idea isn’t to ban hunting, they say, just to make Russian hunters more sensitive to their fragile environment.

POZHOTNOV (through translator): It’s obvious that we can’t save all bear cubs, that would be unrealistic. Each winter in Russia there are hundreds left out in the cold. It’s a huge figure. But sending people a clear message that they can return to nature something they took from it, that they should treat wildlife with respect and humanity is very important.

CHANCE: And it’s a message all the more important as the popularity of bear hunting grows. And, if the animal that most symbolizes Russia to the world is to survive.

Matthew Chance, CNN, in western Russia.