Moscow: A famished polar bear picked up this week after it wandered lost into a northern Russian city hundreds of kilometres from its Arctic habitat was taken on Friday to a zoo in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk for treatment.

The two-year-old female polar had appeared, starving and exhausted, in the northern nickel-producing city of Norilsk on Sunday.

It then became ill and almost died after scavenging for food on a rubbish heap in Norilsk and urgently needed treatment, oil company Rosneft which works in the region said in a statement.

The company said it had taken part in the operation to transport the bear from Norilsk to Krasnoyarsk.