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 Associated Press, he shook its paw and uttered the words: "Be well."
