A group of stray blue dogs in Dzerzhinsk
The images were initially published by Alekseї Ganin on February 11 before being relayed on the Russian social network Vkontakte. There are no less than six stray dogs on the side of the road near the city of Dzerzhinsk in Russia. There is nothing abnormal about this except that the six canids sport a strange bright blue coat.
Are these retouched photos? Latest images from the Avatar movie sequel? A new species of mutant dogs? Nothing of the sort ! If the images have all the hoax, they are nevertheless indeed real as affirmed by several French media such as LCI, the dispatch or even France 24.
Blue dog outbreak in the city of Dzerzhinsk, Baza media reports. Likely explanation: this Russian city is known for its multiple industrial pollutions, and most of the dogs were observed near a factory known for its chemical releases. pic.twitter.com/BVSt9UkBVM
- Benoît Vitkine (@benvtk) February 11, 2021
What happened to those dogs?
The surreal tint of these animals' coats would, in reality, have an explanation as simple as it is sad. The blue color of these animals is due to contamination by chemicals present in a disused factory built during the Soviet era.
According to journalists from the BFM.ru site who reported the words of the factory's liquidator, the dogs may have rolled in copper sulphate from the Orgsteklo factory, which produced plexiglass, plastic hydrocyanic acid as well as chemical weapons until 6 years ago, before it went bankrupt.
The Russian media tells us that Dzerzhinsk, a city located in the Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow, was the largest chemical center in the Soviet Union. The blue dogs could thus be the new indicator of a massive pollution problem in the entire sector. Other alarming facts had already been observed in the region, such as falls of "pink snow" or the discovery of an astonishing "blue lake" .
According to veterinarians from the ZooZashchita-NN clinic in Nizhny Novgorod, the he alth of blue dogs is fortunately not in danger. The local authorities are nevertheless in the process of negotiating with the management of the factory the authorization to catch the animals, in the closed enclosure of the factory, in order to have the heart net and to come to their aid.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that photos of blue dogs have hit the headlines. In 2017, animals that sported the same blue color were observed on the streets of Bombay in India.Here again, it was about the consequences of pollution of the waters of a river by a blue dye used for the manufacture of detergents.