Dancing bears do not dance. They totter around through fear of the stick and the intense pain caused by a rope through their muzzle. For centuries the source of income for a tribe of bear-keeping gypsies, bears now enrich at the cost of their lives and the extinction of the species poachers and traffickers who sell their bile and their meat at high prices on markets in China and the rest of South East Asia.
For centuries – the XIIIth for some and the XVIth for others – the Muslim Kalandar tribe has had a tradition of keeping bears. it was once said that the Kalandars owned more bears than there were in existence !
Where once they entertained the courts of kings and Maharajahs, they now work in the streets, seeking the areas where there are the most tourists. They can be found most often along the roads that link Delhi to Jaipur and Agra. Tradition demands that they go from town to town, showing off their animals in exchange for a few coins. In reality, these bears do not dance: they have been taught to stand on their hind legs and move their head from one side to the other. Sometimes two bears touch their front paws and turn around in imitation of couples dancing. The bears are also trained to lie on their backs, to sit up and to say hello with their paw. Some bear-keepers pretend to "wrestle" with their bears. In fact, the bear is trained to hug its opponent gently.
How much suffering, mutilation, brutality and deprivation is needed to entertain tourists? This is what it costs, if the bear manages to survive, for the Kalandar gypsy to become the master. This treatment is meted out to cub as soon as it is captured in its natural habitat.
From capture to training : an agonising story
Bears are most often captured by tribes who live in the forest and have perfect knowledge of the forest’s fauna and flora. They find a female bear in heat and track her to her den, where they monitor her constantly from a safe distance. 6 or 7 poachers work in tandem, taking care not to be spotted themselves. Once the cub is 3 to 5 weeks old, the poachers wait until the mother leaves the den to look for food and capture the cub. If, unfortunately, the mother disturbs them during their crime, most often she is killed. The cub is then placed in a jute sack, often being drugged with opium to prevent the authorities being alerted by its cries, And given to a Kalandar in exchange for 600 rupees. The Kalandar will then completely illegally train the animal through pain and terror.
As the cub grows, he will be subject to many mutilations and deprivations until he performs a parody of dance. His teeth are broken and his incisors torn out. These incisors, which act as a talisman, are sold at a high price. His claws are cut and to teach him to stand up his paws may be burnt. When the cub is six months old his nose is pierced with a white-hot needle to run the training rope or ring through. Infection often sets in after this operation, which is repeated as many times as necessary.
This is an extremely sensitive part of the bear’s body, and running the rope through it keeps the wound open. This is the key to training the bear, along with the stick. The bear is always kept on a very short leash, which ensures that the pain is directed at his nasal cavity. This means that the bear can rarely turn round or stretch out to his full length. The rate at which the bears are fed leads many of them to go blind. Once the bear is docile and obedient enough, he must travel several kilometres per day for his shows. At this rate, dancing bears have a life expectancy of 8 years, instead of the 25-30 of their wild cousins. But many of them cannot stand this agonising life: it is estimated that 50% of cubs die after capture.
From dancing bear to bile bear
Under threat of extinction, the honey bear is now one of the most protected species. The Kalandar gypsies’ activity has been outlawed in India since 1972. To stop the exploitation of dancing bears, a programme has been set up to find alternative employment for the Kalandars. They can join this programme by handing over their bears and no legal proceedings are taken against them. Many Kalandars have seized this fragile hope to get out of the chronic poverty in which they live. However, there are still nearly 700 dancing bears in captivity (there were around 1200 in 1996). One new development is that rather than hand the bears over to the authorities or the sanctuary which has been created to accommodate them, some sell their bears to traffickers in bile, meat or other organs that are highly sought-after in the markets of South East Asia. This is a practice that has also been eagerly seized upon by poachers who have found a new way to fund their poaching.
The Forestwatch anti-poaching cell, set up by One Voice in association with Wildlife SOS, must now fight on two fronts to give honey bears in India a chance of survival.
It is estimated that this family of bears will decline by over 10% over the coming years.
Portrait of a greedy bear
The Lip Bear (Melursus ursinus), also called the honey bear or Sloth Bear, is a small bear, between 140 and 190 cm, with thick, black, shaggy fur and a Y or U-shaped spot on his chest. He is characterised by a long snout with a long, thick, mobile lower lip that enables him to catch the termites and larvae he eats. His diet also features berries, eggs, fruit and, of course, honey that he loves to eat in trees.
The Melursus ursinus family today features fewer than 10 000 individuals. Wildlife SOS estimates that just under 4000 of them live in India, the rest are shared between Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The lip bear is on the threatened animal red list, in the "Vulnerable" category, i.e. it is facing a major risk of extinction. It therefore benefits from both national and international protection. Its capture, training and exhibition are strictly prohibited and severely punished, especially in India. However, it is estimated that this family will decline by over 10% over the next ten years. This decline is due essentially to the capture of cubs in their natural habitat to be sold to the Kalandars. They are also killed for their bile and their meat, especially their paws, which are used in Chinese medicine and cooking respectively. Deforestation, the destruction of their habitat, also contributes to threatening the extinction of this greedy bear.
