The polar bear was returned to its home in Chukotka. Photo: AP
A polar bear found roaming around a village in eastern Russia, hundreds of kilometres away from its usual habitat, has been flown back home.
The exhausted-looking animal apparently travelled on an ice floe from the remote, sparsely populated Chukotka to a village on Kamchatka, about 700km south when it was found.
Russian emergency authorities on Monday mounted an operation to repatriate the bear.
A member of the response team shot a tranquiliser at the bear and put it in a container and onto a helicopter which flew to the snow-covered Chukotka.
The bear was then released into the wild.
Environmentalists say that wild animals such as polar bear are suffering from the shrinking hunting environment and the receding ice as the Arctic is getting warmer.
