Latest report from Wildlife SOS India
We have rescued two little bear cubs yesterday morning! It was like a big adventure with informants and telephone calls at 3am, meeting them in unmarked jeeps at strange locations, whisking them past police outposts so they wouldn’t get into trouble, smuggling the cubs through the check points hidden under the car seats… finally after four days or co-ordinated effort, we got our hands on the cubs!
Both the rescued cubs are female and have been named “Rasgulla” and “Gulab Jamun” after two popular indian sweets. Rasgulla is seven months old and Gulab Jamun is about five months old. Both came in very traumatised and with severly infected muzzles which required immediate medical attention.
In addition to the above, we have also been actively involved in a recent anti-poaching raid which we undertook with the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department. It involved working undercover with two informants, the Forest Department and Geeta co-ordinating the operation while Kartick went undercover as an elderly Sikh gentleman!
The operation was a complete success. Three locations were raided, four people arrested and one man went into judicial custody awaiting a court hearing in the next couple of weeks. Three bear cubs rescued: one male who is blind in both eyes and two females, all between the ages of 6 and 10 months. One of the females is a real star, going crazy with delight when Geeta walked her around the sanctuary, climbing trees, playing hide and seek and exploring. All three cubs had maggot wounds in their muzzles which we treated. In addition to the cubs, we also rescued one adult bear.
All the bears were then transported in the dead of night back to our rescue centre in Agra without alerting the Kalandar Community. They are now safe, bringing the total of rescued bears at the centre to 38 adults and six cubs.
Finally, a big thank you to all who have donated so generously so that our work in saving bears from a life of pain and misery can go on.