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Q1. What is a ‘Dancing Bear’ in India?
Q2. Who are the people that dance the bears?
Q3. Is bear dancing legal in India?
Q4. What misery does a bear undergoes to become a dancing bear in India?
Q5. Apart from India which are the other countries of the world where bear dancing exists?
Q6. What work does Wildlife SOS do to save the Indian sloth bears from being used as
dancing bears?
Q7. How do Qalandars earn their livelihoods after
their bears are surrendered?
Q8. Where does Wildlife SOS take the bears for
rehabilitation after they have been
rescued?
Q9. When will there be no more ‘dancing bears’ in
India?
Q10.What is being done to protect the sloth bears in the wild?
A1:
In India a
‘Dancing Bear’ is a sloth bear that has had its
muzzle pierced and threaded with a coarse rope. The bear lives at the end of
the rope, dragged from village to village, dancing
for tourists and suffering in silence.
A2:
The Qalandar people are a tribal community in India who have
forced bears to ‘dance’ to entertain people in order to earn a
livelihood. Qalandars are supposed to have started this practice back in the 13th
century when they danced bears to entertain the emperors of
India.
A3:
No. Bear dancing was declared illegal under the Indian
Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. However, many Qalandars still dance bears as they have no other means of livelihood.
A4: The
life of a ‘dancing bear’ is one of unimaginable sadness. These
bears are stolen from their mothers at less than 4 weeks old and are sold in the underground market. Often, the mother bears are
killed while they are trying to defend their babies. If they survive the
journey, the cubs will have their canine teeth knocked out and
their muzzle pierced. These bears suffer in silence, sometimes
for decades.
A5:
The exploitation of bears has existed in every
country where there is a wild bear population.
A6:
To help save the Indian sloth bears, Wildlife SOS runs a unique
project called the
Indian Bear Rescue Project. The project works
towards rescuing the dancing bears from the Qalandars of India
and rehabilitating them in
various bear rescue centers in the
country as these bears can no longer be left in the wild, as they cannot fend for themselves.
A7:
It is important that the Qalandars do not return to 'dancing'
bears again after their bear has been surrendered. Therefore,
Wildlife SOS provides
monetary support to these Qalandars, in addition to helping them find honorable and humane vocations, so they will no longer
need to exploit bears to feed their families.
A8:
To provide a safe haven to bears that have long been exploited
by Qalandars and are now unable to live in the wild,
Wildlife SOS runs 3 bear rescue facilities in India located in 3
different states.
The facilities are the
Agra Bear Rescue Facility located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh;
Bannerghata Bear Rescue Centre located in Bangalore, Karnataka
and
Van Vihar Bear Rescue Center located in Bhopal, Madhya
Pradesh.
A9:
Wildlife SOS is determined to wipe out the age old tradition of
‘dancing bears’ from India by 2010.
A10:
Wildlife SOS is working to buy,
conserve and protect bear
habitat so that there will always be suitable habitats where sloth bears
can exist as nature intended. Wildlife SOS is also actively
involved in
anti-poaching efforts which are making it more
difficult for people to profit from poaching wildlife.
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