Abstract

Bear dancing has been found to be popular in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Usually the owners are very poor and are desperate for any source of profit for survival and are limited to making profit from other sources. Bulgaria was the last to use dancing bears as a source of entertainment run on after that the bears were put into a sanctuary just recently in 2007. Another incident where the dancing bears have been seen even though there is a law prohibiting the cruel act was Spain. Dancing bears are primarily controlled by a group of people called Kalandar, who come from a line of tribesmen who entertained India’s Mughal emperors with well trained animal acts. The Kalandar group was recognized by the government as a deprived group of people even though the acts to help them out of poverty have been few now wildlife programs are working to get them into another line of work for good, which would help the bears get into a sanctuary and nursed back to good health. These cruel animal acts have been mismanaged from the start and in the mid 90s WSPA which is World Society for the Protection of Animals and a Wildlife program stepped in. The reason why it has not been managed entirely is because some of these bears are owned by very powerful landlords neither the WSPA nor the wildlife program dared to get ear to the properties owned by them. The government says they can’t go and take the bears from their house because it is against the law and cannot prosecute them without seeing them bear bait or bear dance for the public. This issue has been mismanaged from the beginning and only getting worse. The bears health is continually getting worse most bears die from shock as young cubs while going through training. Bear baiting and Bear dancing started for entertainment for the common man and also for royalty back then it was innocent fun but now more and more people are recognizing it is not amusing anymore. This is not a part of their culture it is their tradition. Bear baiting and bear dancing has been used in many other countries such has England, Bulgaria and Spain. Bear baiting is not only a part of Pakistan’s and Indian’s tradition it also lies closer to home, bear hunting is a huge tradition in the United States, bear baiting is banned from 18 out of the 28 that allow bear baiting. Bear baiting was used to entertain the royalty and common folk but now it is entertaining 2,000 guests that are not aware of their actions and how they are encouraging this kind of barbarity. The tradition needs to be put to rest so that a new and much healthier tradition can be put into place. In the beginning of Bear baiting and bear dancing it was allowed in any country that wanted to entertain their people that way it was just recently when the laws were enforced. This issue is important because innocent bears for hundreds of years have been mistreated, abused and killed for entertainment. The bears are pouched as cubs and put through a training system where they take out the teeth and claws, and insert a rope inside their mouths. This sends a cub into shock or physically ill from then progressing as their job continues entertaining people who are unaware of how badly their pain is. The bears don’t dance because they enjoy it; they dance to get away from the pain. This situation is being managed somewhat but if more of the public was aware there would be a lot more progress on this issue and it wouldn’t take 4 to 10 years to help stop bear baiting and bear dancing
The laws were developed for distinction issues. Also because of the cruel nature people put the bears through some countries did not want to be apart of it because people were starting to look down upon it. This issue is being managed but not as urgently as it needs to be. Organizations are trying to take charge but it is hard to do so when the people that own the bears are very powerful in their country.