Leave the WILD Things Be

Wild animals have been made to serve a variety of human needs, including recreational ones. It’s up to everyday folk to decry the use of animals for entertainment

- Swati Sanyal Tarafdar

IN 2019, WILDLIFE conservationists, especially those caring for bears, celebrated a very special anniversary—the 10th anniversary of the rescue of the last ‘dancing’ bear from India’s streets. The sloth bear named Raju, who was eight years old at the time, was freed from Chikkaharavalli in Karnataka by Wildlife SOS, an organization dedicated to saving and rehabilitating abused wildlife. The case marked their 628th bear rescue.

This informal roadside entertainment, once rampant on Indian streets, came from a 400-year-old tradition of man’s pursuit of divertissement. The community that primarily made a living from this practice, the Kalandars, once regaled and delighted nobles by making bears perform tricks.

But the story behind the performances is far from pleasurable. Any service derived from animals is made possible only through training practices grounded in deep cruelty. The bears for instance, would be captured as cubs after their mothers were killed. Their muzzles would then be pierced with hot iron rods, and threaded with thick ropes that, when tugged, made the animals jump and prance in pain. This was how Raju too spent his youngest years.

Now 23, Raju has a new name— Adit—and a new address at the Bannerghatta Bear Rescue Centre in Bengaluru, far from the miseries he endured on the streets. His rehabilitation, and that of all captive sloth bears, came after the Kalandars were empowered with new opportunities for education and alternative livelihoods. Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder of Wildlife SOS, the group that pioneered the project, confirmed to Reader’s Digest that not a single dancing bear can be found in India anymore.

The Cruelty of Captivity