The Indian sloth bear is one of the

helpless victims of animal cruelty on the Indian sub-continent. They are not

alone, because other bear species suffer horrible abuse as well. Sloth bears are

killed every year for their gallbladders, also the claws, bile, and genital

organs. The bile, which is excreted from the gallbladder, is used in

Chinese folk medicine along with the genitals. The claws will be expensive

trinkets to sell on the black market along with the other bear products. Severe

poaching of sloth bears for their body parts and taking the bear cubs to be

trained for "dancing," has taken its toll on the population. Sloth bears are now

on the World Conservation Union's red list of threatened animals. Human

encroachment into their wild habitat by quarrying, illegal tree felling, mining,

and mass deforestation, has scattered the bears into small, fragmented groups in

south and east India. There is a sub-species of the sloth bear in Sri

Lanka as well.

 

     The sloth bear is the only

bear that routinely carries her young on her back when out foraging. She has to

travel a fair distance sometimes, to get enough food for her and the

cubs. She will raid many ant and termite nests, which are their

preferred diet. They love honey as well. They like it so much, they

share the name "honey bears" with the sun bear, who is also very fond of

honey. The sloth bear's long, curved claws help when climbing trees to get

at the bee's nests, also shaking fruit out of trees to feed the cubs on the

ground below. When food is scarce however, the bears sometimes raid food crops

grown by farmers in the area. This causes bear/man confrontations, resulting in

more bear deaths and sometimes human fatalities.

 

     When

the sloth bear cubs are

grabbed by poachers, they are sometimes taken out of their dens much too soon. A

cub usually doesn't leave the den until it is 3 months old, but poachers have

taken them as young as 5 weeks. As many as 70% of the babies may not make it to

adulthood, because the cubs just don't survive the animal

cruelty and lack of nutrition. They are put in sacks and taken to Kalandar

(Qalandar) villages to be sold and trained as dancing bears. Kalandar men

are the traditional trainers that make the bears perform silly antics and dances

for the tourists. They may go to rural villages when the men think it isn't safe

to be near the cities. If caught making the bears dance, the owner may be fined

and have the bear confiscated, because bear dancing has been illegal since 1972.

The Indian government has not been able to enforce the law consistently,

due to the fact that there were so many confiscated bears when the law was first

enacted. There weren't enough large, secure facilities to house all

the rescued bears humanely. The zoos wouldn't take them because they had

been abused so much that they couldn't risk the safety of

their employee's around the bears. Many of the bears had health

issues and would have required surgery, followed by medical

care during the recovery process. When a sloth bear is rescued, it can take

as much as a year for it to be rehabilitated. The horrible animal cruelty and

abuse can cause the bear to have mental, as well as physical

issues.

 

     In order for a wild bear to be

"trained", it has to know that its owner is the boss. This is

accomplished by alternately beating and starving the bear until it does what is

required. At only 6 months old, a crude iron needle is heated and driven into

the cub's sensitive muzzle or through its palate. A ring or rope is pulled

through the raw wound so that the trainer can control the bear, by causing

extreme pain when the bear doesn't follow the commands. There is no

anesthesia used when this excruciating mutilation takes place. Male bear cubs

are castrated to make them less aggressive, again no pain killers or antibiotics

are ever used. By the time the sloth bear is 1 year old, its teeth have all been

broken off using a metal rod. The reason for this brutality, is to keep the

bear from biting the owner or any of the audience. Sometimes its claws are

pulled out or broken off as well. Now the bear can never go back to the

wild, because it wouldn't be able to chew a normal,  wild bears diet,

even if the owner could afford to buy it. So now the sloth bear has to

eat a mushy mixture that doesn't have enough nutrition for it, so

the bear becomes malnourished. Some bears have gone blind from the lack of

nutrition, but the Kalandar still make them dance. The sloth bears must

endure the long-term affects of the animal cruelty for the remainder of

their short, miserable lives.

 

     As if what the bear has already

endured isn't enough, the "training" consists of making the bear stand on hot

coals.  In a futile attempt to escape the pain, the bear jumps from

one  foot to the other while the owner bangs a drum or other

object. The bear must learn to lift his feet in time with

the beat of the drum, to "dance". Sometimes heated metal plates are used for the

bear to stand on and "dance". This hellish torture continues until the bear

learns to pick up its feet on cue and perform whatever other tricks the owner

teaches him. The beating/starvation strategy continues until the bear's spirit

is broken, then its dragged from place to place to perform when commanded. This

dancing bear show earns the owner about enough rupees to equal 65 to

70 dollars per month, if compared with the American dollar. The owner and

bear travel for miles to find villagers or tourists who will pay to see the bear

dance. Often in the hot sun, with temperatures reaching into the 80s, this

torment goes on for 6-10 hours a day, every day. Bears subjected to this animal

abuse rarely live beyond 7-8 years, while the wild bears are estimated to live

between 20 and 30 years.

 

      How long can

this continue before the sloth bear becomes extinct? There are a number of

wonderful people committed to the rescue of the dancing sloth

bears. Progress has been made on many fronts, most noticeably with the

opening of 4 bear sanctuaries near Agra, India. There is so much more to be

done and every little contribution helps rescue more abused, emaciated,

sometimes desperately sick animals. I know that every caring person who reads

this will want to reach out and help these poor

bears.