A Dancing Bear in India

July 18, 2003 — India's dancing bears are being given an early retirement at the Agra Bear Rescue Facility, which currently houses 43 sloth bears rescued from their gypsy owners.

The gypsies, known as Kalanders, have been eking out a living for the past 300 years by making the animals "dance."

Run by Wildlife SOS, an Indian animal rights group, the sanctuary is situated in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Agra.

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The Agra Bear Rescue Facility, which began operations on Dec. 26 with 16 bears, is funded by Australia's Free the Bears Fund, One Voice of France and the British based International Animal Rescue.

It has artificial dens, two large pools, two quarantine pens, a laboratory, and a veterinary clinic. Bears are kept in air-cooled pens but allowed to roam more freely at feeding time in the afternoons.

While some of the bears housed in the 7.6-hectare (19-acre) sanctuary were seized from the gypsies by police and handed over to Wildlife SOS, others were surrendered by their owners.

Australian Mary Hutton of Free the Bears Fund said the "aim of setting up the sanctuary was to free the animals while ensuring that their owners don't suffer if their means of livelihood is taken away.

"We give each person who surrenders a bear 50,000 rupees ($1,080 dollars) to make sure he can start life afresh," she said.

Hutton estimated that there were at least 1,200 dancing bears on the streets of India, mostly in Agra, a huge draw for tourists due to the fabled Taj Mahal.

The bears are stolen as cubs from the forests of Uttar Pradesh, neighboring Uttaranchal, the central province of Madhya Pradesh and eastern Orissa state.

"All of them are traumatized. Some have their jaws broken, others are suffering from infection," Hutton said.

As for the dancing, she has her own explanation to counter that of the Kalanders.

Normally, owners pierce the nose of the cub to insert a thick rope through it, she said.

"When the owner pulls the bear up with rope, its hurts the animal so much that its stands on its hind legs and twists and turns in the direction of the pull to mitigate the pain. That is what is called dancing."

The bears cannot be released in the wild because of their changed nature but they will be given larger pottering ground in the sanctuary, which is soon to be expanded fourfold, said Satyanarayan.