Destruction Of Kakhovka HPP Kills Thousands Of Animals In Kherson Region - Authorities

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th June, 2023) The Lower Dnipro National Nature Park has been flooded as a result of the partial destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP) in the Kherson Region, leaving thousands of animals dead, the mayor of the Nova Kakhovka district, Vladimir Leontiev, said on Wednesday.

"The Lower Dnipro National Nature Park has been flooded. Thousands of animals have died there. The disaster is huge," he said on Russian broadcaster Channel One.

Leontiev noted that the nature park had been home to thousands of species, many of which were on the Red List of Threatened Species.

"Abundant wildlife, red-listed (animals). People came there specifically for birdwatching. All those animals, thousands and thousands of birds were washed away. All the nests, all the eggs - everything has been destroyed ... In a few days we will know better and be horrified by what has happened," he said.

Leontiev also dismissed reports that the animals of the Nova Kakhovka zoo had also drowned, adding that they had been moved out of the city in 2022.

"People are very fond of twisting and distorting facts. All of the animals at Fairytale Oakwood zoo were evacuated and moved elsewhere last year. Not a single animal was left behind. Volunteers took care of them," he said.

Earlier in the week, Oleg Zubkov, the head of the Taigan lion park in the Bilohirsk region of Crimea, told Sputnik that almost all the animals and birds from the Nova Kakhovka zoo had been evacuated to Crimea and are safe.

The upper part of the Kakhovka HPP on the Dnirpo River was damaged by shelling overnight into Tuesday. The shelling did not completely destroy the plant's dam, but caused an uncontrollable outflow of water into towns downstream. Moscow and Kiev have blamed each other for the shelling. Authorities in some of the affected areas have begun evacuating the population.