Lions and tigers and bears don't frighten Putin.
He has shot a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer gun, released leopards into a wildlife sanctuary, and come hand-to-paw with the world's biggest bears.
In April, he attached a satellite-tracking collar on a tranquilized polar bear in Franz Josef Land, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean off the northwest coast of Russia's mainland. Wearing a bright red coat and cap, Putin reportedly helped elevate the beast for weighing, measure its length, and roll it onto its side.
On his departure, according to the , he shook its paw and uttered the words: "Be well."
