India’s last dancing bear ‘Raju’ was rescued in 2009 by Wildlife SOS, an NGO that works in wildlife conservation, and on Monday the iconic male sloth bear celebrated seven year of freedom
Wildlife SOS director (research and veterinary operations) Dr. Arun. A. Sha said: “Today is a very memorable day for Wildlife SOS as exactly seven years ago we rescued Raju, the last dancing bear to walk the streets of India. Raju was in a pitiable state, undernourished and weighed less than 60 kg at the time of rescue. Today, he is healthy and enjoying his new life in the company of other rescued sloth bears at our Bannerghatta Bear Rescue Centre.”
A life of torture
Raju had spent the first eight years of his life living in deplorable condition.
As part of his ‘training’ to become a dancing bear, a red hot iron poker was forcibly pierced through his soft muzzle and a rope was then strung through the fresh wound.
“Like most sloth bears who were subjected to this brutality, Raju’s muzzle wound was never allowed to heal and his Kalandar master would tug on the rope to make him ‘dance’ and jump from the pain, to entertain the masses. Till date we have rescued over 600 dancing bears. Our only objective is to give these animals a life of dignity and freedom they deserve,” said Geeta Seshamani, co-founder and secretary of Wildlife SOS.
In 2009, the organisation took the last dancing bear off the streets of India bringing an end to a centuries-old tradition that inflicted terrible cruelty on thousands of the highly-endangered sloth bears.
“The organisation’s Dancing Bear Rehabilitation Project was supported by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the State forests departments. They sponsored education and provided alternative livelihoods for the Kalandar communities, who for centuries were dependent on sloth bears to earn a living,” noted the release.
Many facilities
Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder and CEO of Wildlife SOS, said: “Watching Raju take his first steps towards freedom stood testament for everyone at Wildlife SOS as we finally closed the curtain on India’s dancing bear trade.”
The practice of dancing bears was made illegal in India when the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 came into effect. However, it wasn’t until the end of 2002, when the Wildlife SOS Agra Bear Rescue Facility was established in collaboration with the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department, that there was a place to house the rescued bears.
Since then the project has expanded to four rescue facilities in Agra, Bannerghatta, Bhopal and West Bengal. The Agra facility is the world’s largest sloth bear rescue facility, which currently houses 200 bears. Sloth bears are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
