Diary - Dancing Bear Rescue
As we celebrate our 30 year anniversary, we are reflecting on some of our biggest achievements, one of these, of course, is the success of our dancing bear rescue project.
We are incredibly proud to say that, with our partners at Wildlife SOS and Free the Bears, we successfully put an end to the cruel tradition of dancing bears on the streets of India.
10 years ago, if you were to walk down the streets of India, you would be likely to witness unimaginable animal abuse, being sold to tourists as 'entertainment'. Sloth bears were used as 'dancing...
Aleem is a beautiful ex-dancing bear living at the bear sanctuary in Agra. These amazing photos make it almost hard to believe his horrific past in captivity, where he was forced to dance for laughing tourists on the side of a dirty and polluted road.
Each and every one of his waking moments was spent in pure agony and it is a miracle he managed to survive for so long. Upon rescue, his physical condition made him look like he was on the brink of death. He was malnourished, extremely thin and with a look of despair in those big, beautiful brown eyes. He...
This beautiful sloth bear was rescued by our partners Wildlife SOS in 2007 when he was just one year old. The young bear had already been exposed to a life of unimaginable cruelty and suffering, and had been starved to the brink of death.
He was in a great deal of pain due to an infection, caused by the relentless tugging of a coarse rope that had been forced through his muzzle with a hot poker.
Upon rescue, the team immediately treated his muzzle and made every effort to gain his trust. He was transported to the Agra Bear Rescue Facility,...
Polly spent the beginning of her life as a dancing bear. She spent her days enduring a miserable existence, her life completely void of any love or care.
Instead, physical and mental abuse plagued her every waking moment.
After her cruel captors shoved a red-hot poker through her nose, a harsh rope was pushed through the holes and then tied. Every single time the rope was tugged, Polly would stand on her hind-legs and shake around in pain.
Tourists would laugh at the dancing bear in front of them, completely unaware of the physical and...
Amal the bear was rescued at the age of 12. He had been held captive as a dancing bear, a hot poker had been shoved through his nose when he was only a cub, leaving a gaping wound to fester for 12 long and painful years.
The list of health problems Amal was suffering from upon arrival seemed endless. He had severe malnutrition, dry skin, and teeth that were smashed to smithereens, to name a few. Our veterinary team knew that they would have to come up with a miracle to bring this bear back from the brink of death. But they did not give up and this...
Ratna spent the first three years of her life as a dancing bear. Her first experience of this world was one of pain, suffering and stress.
Could you imagine what it would be like to have a hot poker shoved through your nose? Just so that a rope could be pulled through it and then used to torture you for the entertainment of others? This is what this beautiful bear, and many others like her, had to endure on a daily basis before being rescued by our team.
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Victoria is a beautiful bear enjoying life at the sanctuary in Agra, India. Behind those big brown eyes is a past full of unimaginable pain and suffering which she experienced as a victim of the dancing bear trade.
In 2013, our partners Wildlife SOS found her in a terrible condition. Her majestic coat of fur had become overgrown, filthy and infested with parasites. On top of this, she was also suffering from a painful, untreated wound on her muzzle, caused by a rope being forced through it by her heartless captors.
This poor bear had also...
Back in 2007, a rescue team sent out by our partners Wildlife SOS, rescued a bear later named Kasthuri from a Kalandar settlement in West Bengal. At only six months old, the only life she knew was filled with an incredible amount of pain and misery.
As part of her indoctrination as a dancing bear, she would have had a huge, red hot, iron poker forcibily shoved through her muzzle. A rope would have then been fed through the fresh wound, ensuring that the wound would never heal and giving her captors complete control over her. Every time the rope was...
Giri was 3 months old when he was rescued. He was found tied up, underweight and weak, curled up alongside another young bear. He was suffering from a horrible infection in his nose, and required urgent medical care to stop his condition worsening. The rescue took place as a part of an anti-poaching operation carried out by our partners, Wildlife SOS.
Giri, and the other bear, were rushed to the Agra Bear Rescue facility. This facility is equipped with specialist equipment and rehabilitative facilities to provide the bears with the urgent care that...
We rescued Truffles with our partners Wildlife SOS when he was just a little over a year old. He and three other young sloth bears were rescued from a group of poachers based in Jharkhand. All four of the bears were sold into a life of misery as dancing bears across the Indo-Nepal border, where this cruel practice is still on-going.
When we first rescued Truffles back in 2013, we were greeted with the shocking site of a scrawny, weak bear with matted fur and a look of sadness in his eyes. His muzzle had been pierced, leaving an open, gaping wound...