Rescued from a life of cruelty: three-year-old female bear being nursed back to health
News
Used for "dancing" for all of her brief life, this young female bear was destined for a life of cruelty. Thankfully, she's now in the care of the incredible staff at our partner sanctuary in Pakistan.
This lovely three-year-old female Asiatic black bear arrived at the Pakistan sanctuary in April malnourished and underweight. At just 40 kilograms, she was tiny for her age and very weak.
Additionally, her arrival check-ups had to be delayed until the sanctuary vets felt that she was stable enough to cope with the anaesthesia.
Her former owner used her as a dancing bear and was his only source of income. Our partner, the Bioresource Research Centre (BRC) team met with him frequently to convince him to surrender her.
After many repeated visits he agreed to give her up in return for a general store, which the team set up for him.
He signed an agreement to never purchase another bear and to continue running the store.
She, like the four other bears who were rescued at the same time as her, all suffered from a severe parasitic infection.
As a result, she had to be kept in a smaller cage to avoid affecting the other bears in the quarantine area and so that continuous treatment could be easily adminstrered.
The team was very happy to see that she responded well to the treatment and is now quickly putting on weight.
She will be moved to a large quarantine den and will continue to be closely monitored. It will likely be a while before she is healthy enough to be released into the main enclosure with the other bears.
The staff at the sanctuary describe her as "a lovely bear, very joyous, friendly and happy. Even though she’s malnourished, she’s relaxed and is really enjoying her food."
The bear doesn’t have a name yet, but will soon be given one that reflects her unique personality.
The team was very happy to see that she responded well to the treatment and is now quickly putting on weight.