Russian bear, tigers predict Biden will win US elections
The predictive prowess of the Royev Rochey Zoo inhabitants made headlines in 2016 when one of its residents, a polar bear named Felix, predicted Trump's victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
By AARON REICHBrown bear 747 stands in a river hunting for salmon to fatten up before hibernation at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, US, September 20, 2020.(photo credit: COURTESY OF US NATIONAL PARK SERVICE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
While many political forecasters around the world are divided on predicting the outcome of the November 3 US presidential election, some of Russia's finest have used an unorthodox approach to find the answer, but this comes with three surprises.The experts in question are two tigers and a bear, their method of prediction was centered around watermelons, and perhaps most surprisingly, they're backing Joe Biden.Reported in the Moscow Times, these three residents of the Royev Rochey Zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, were provided with watermelons, one with a carved-out image of Biden and another with an image of US President Donald Trump. The prediction is determined based on which watermelon the animals interact with.The first of these experts, the white Bengal tiger named Khan, ignored the Trump watermelon, focusing his rapt attention on Biden by rolling it around. His Royev Rochey Zoo colleague Bartek, an Amur tiger, was more assertive, and after some thought, smashed the Biden watermelon completely.The bear, named Buyan, was even more through in his choice, completely devouring the Biden watermelon's insides.As absurd as this prediction seems, it is far from unprecedented. The predictive prowess of the Royev Rochey Zoo inhabitants made headlines in 2016 when one of its residents, a polar bear named Felix, predicted Trump's victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton through the use of pumpkin-based predictions, as shown by Inside Edition.However, it isn't foolproof, with an Amur tiger named Yunona having chosen Clinton that same year.
Nonetheless, the unanimous support for Biden in 2020 was enough for the zoo to take to social media. Writing on their page on the Russian social media platform VK, the zoo explained that all of their watermelons were the same, and that there was no bias favoring the Democrats.However, one of its political forecasters, Buyan the Brown Bear, has come under scrutiny in recent years. This is due to a failed prediction of the World Cup winner in 2018, as well as failing to predict Volodomyr Zelensky's victory in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections, Reuters reported at the time. However, another resident, a polar bear named Avrora, successfully predicted Zelensky.
