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Home > News > Dancing Bear Freed > Dancing Bear Freed
Dancing Bear Freed
The cutting of a nose rope with a pair of household scissors marked the poignant beginning of a cruelty-free and more dignified life for two dancing bears in India.
WSPA is working with member society the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) on a project to release dancing bears from their cruel captivity.
Relocating at Kanan-Pendari Zoo
For us the happiest moment was cutting off the restrictive nose ropes and muzzles and the bears found themselves ‘free’ for the first time to be themselves, not performers, not jokers to be derided and give amusement to people, but just be bears.
Arjun Nayer, Programme Officer of WTI, describing the arrival of the two bears
Dancing bear with Kalandar owner
The surrender of these bears marks a new epoch in captive sloth bear welfare in India. These bears are the first in Chattishgarh, to begin a new life, free from the pain and shame of the degrading profession that formed a part of their daily life.
We hope that this step will encourage other Kalandars too to join this programme. There are some 16 dancing bears in Chattishgarh, most in remote areas, but five more owners have already approached the WTI project to discuss handing over their bears.
Arjun, explaining the importance of the handover
Two bear owners (known as Kalandars) approached the WTI project this week and agreed to hand over their captive bears in exchange for help and support in making new livelihoods for themselves.
The Sloth Bear Welfare and Conservation Project is a joint venture of WSPA and WTI.
The bears will be cared for in a temporary enclosure at Kenan Pendari Zoo before eventually being released into a forested sanctuary.
A long, cruel tradition
Dancing bears are part of a long, but cruel, tradition of ‘entertainment’ in India.
They are caught from the wild as cubs and sold on to communities known as Kalandars who live in many parts of India.
The bear cubs have a rope pierced through their nose and are trained to stand on their hind paws and shuffle as if dancing by the Kalandar tugging on the rope, which causes intense pain to the animal.
The pain ends for Kallu and Tinku
The two bears named Kallu, aged 16 and Tinku aged 14, were handed over to the Forest Department and placed in the temporary area at the zoo where they will receive veterinary care and a good diet.
Earlier this year, 15 dancing bears were handed over to the Forestry Department in Bhopal after the WTI had spent 2 months training the Kalandars in alternative livelihoods through workshops to make detergents, liquid soap and incense sticks working with the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development.
Alternative livelihoods for Kalandars
The key objective of the campaign was to encourage the Kalandars to adopt alternative livelihoods and make them aware of the illegal implication of bear dancing after a ban by the government in 1998.
Following this awareness campaign, most of the Kalanders in the area agreed to surrender their bears to the Forest Department.
WSPA will continue to fund the Wildlife Trust of India in this programme throughout the next few years.
Later this year the WTI will be training 1000 forest guards to prevent new cubs being poached from the forests for the dancing bear trade.
The practice of bear dancing continues
More bears need to be rescued and this will be done through work with Kalandar communities.
WSPA and WTI are committed to continue working with these communities to ensure that they develop new skills and sustainable alternative lifestyles.
WSPA has already helped local animal welfare groups in Greece and Turkey to bring an end to the cruel practice of bear dancing.
Please help WSPA stop bear dancing and other cruel activities >>