MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has added gray whales to the list of endangered species he has personally helped Russian scientists track.
From the deck of a rubber boat, he fired darts from a crossbow to collect skin samples from a whale swimming near the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Back on shore, journalists asked Putin whether it was dangerous. He told them “to live in general is dangerous” but said he enjoyed today’s adventure.
He admitted that his first three shots missed in the choppy water and that only his fourth shot hit the whale.
A biologist with him displayed the skin sample and said it would allow experts to determine where the whale came from.
Putin’s whaling experience was shown on television, where Russians have become accustomed to seeing him involved with endangered animals.
In April he attached a satellite-tracking collar on a tranquilized polar bear.
He also has shot a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer gun and released leopards into a wildlife sanctuary.
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