 Rescued Bears |
Introduction
Kund Bear Sanctuary, some 12 hectare fenced area located at Kund (NWFP)
having natural
ve getation and intensive care unit, has been developed to
provide semi-captive conditions,supported by an intensive health care and
supplemented high energy vitamin-rich diet.The faci lities
generated at the bear sanctuary, apart from providing fear-free semi captive
conditions for the confiscated bears, are also being exploited in mastering
the state of art and science of captive management of bears, which can be
pressed into action if captive management remains the only alternative for
maintenance of genes of a population/ race/ species of bears, facing an
eminent extinction in wild.
Success
Stories of few Rescued Bears
NEELUM
Our first success story deals with
the rehabilitation of a golden brown female Himalayan bear.
 This bear
was named as NEELUM, literary meaning “blue sapphire”, as it belonged to a
land of
mines of blue
sapphire.Neelum was confiscated after a long and hard chasing operation. In the
absence of proper laws,
the criminals did not remain behind the bars for
long, but this bear has been saved from horrible, painful, captive life very
far
away from its natural homeland.
After proper examination and initial
treatment, Neelum was shifted in Kund Bear Sanctuary in wilderness of its
mother lands, after it has been fully rehabilitated and vitalized. The
release site is being chosen and necessary arrangements have being made.
This bear will soon be released back in wild as and when the stage is set.
Neelum is now enjoying a fearless and healthy
life within the sanctuary. it has been provided with a separate enclosure
with minimum human interference, high energy food, and fresh water pool to
perform all its normal near wild-activities.
MALO
In northern parts of
Pakistan there are many tracts far from a direct, human approach and
poaching of wild animals is mainly confined to these administratively
unapproachable areas. One of our associates conveyed us that a
dealer in
Peshawar Makri Bazar Market had asked some poacher for supply of bear cub.
We started exploring our networks in four different possible
poaching tracts and ultimately succeeded in digging out information about
possible poaching of cub in the
Swat
Valley.
We identified the people involved in the poaching and ultimately our field
staff succeeded in rescuing a bear cub, after a long painful and horrible
operation. In this operation one of our staff members received serious
injuries, as the culprits were armed.
This was a male Himalayan black bear
cub, which was then transported to Kund bear sanctuary.
This bear cub was named as MALO, a
local language word meaning strong. The weight of cub at the time of
confiscation was 1.2 kg only.
Our senior management remained with
this bear cub round the clock for the first week of its sanctuary life, as
it was difficult for it to adjust in such a new environment at such a young
age. after 24 hours continuous care for a period of a month, MALO
attained a weight of about 10 kg, as by then it was gradually separated from
direct care of the attendants. The spread of news of this bear
rescue operation in local masses had a very positive impact on discouraging
trade of wild animals in these areas.
MAYLU
An abandoned male black bear cub,
which was later named as MAYLU, was found in a poor condition, ju st outside
his natural habitat in
Kaghan
Valley
of the
Himalayas.
The villagers, spotting
the bear did not spot its mother in the vicinity and
captured it with a view to sell it in the local market.
Fortunately, before MAYLU could be
sold, senior management of
the NWFP Wildlife Department
got informed and the
cub was being confiscated. MAYLU was handed over to the local wildlife
officials, and they did their best to care the distressed bear cub.
Unfortunately, the Wildlife staff
were not sufficiently trained in proper
caring and handling of this bear cub. Wildlife staff was not
able to fulfill
the nutritional requirement of the bear cub, and it was maintained on bread
and fruits, which was almost indigestible by his delicate stomach too hard
to be digested by his delicate stomach.
Wildlife department was considering
moving MAYLU to some zoo, when we got informed about the miserable state of
this cub. We requested the NWFP Wildlife department for its handing over.
After the acceptance of our request. we immediately shifted it to Kund Bear
Sanctuary. Initial examination by the veterinary expert revealed that Maylu
was so undernourished and weighed 7.8 kg, only, when a 7 months old bear
should weigh around 20 kg.
Special diet was prepared to restore
Maylu’s health. Malu remained in the intensive care section of the Kund
Sanctuary .In just five days Malu weighed 9.4 Kg .The cub was later moved to
an area where its interaction with man was limited, allowing him privacy to
develop his natural behavior to the fullest extent.
When Maylu attained a weight of 20
kg, it was released into his own enclosure where he is learning the skills
required to survive in the wild.
We hope that Maylu will ultimately exhibit its natural
behavior and instincts, when it can survive under the natural odds of wild
conditions. MAYLU will soon be released back into the original habitat of
Kaghan valley.
“Maylu” is a local Pushtu word for
bear; and so we named the bear cub accordingly
KARISHMA
The major credit in the success of
BRC plotted national bearbaiting control campaign goes to NWFP Wildlife
Department. The unconditional support of the department is responsible for
great achievements of BRC. NWFP
 is the only
province of
Pakistan
where there is no bear in captivity.The province was, in past, the center
of bearbaiting activities, but now due to strict
implementation of the laws,
gypsies do not dare to enter the province. The gypsies
migrated from this
province very early, due to strict policies of the wildlife administration
of the province.
In Dir, a tract in the
province of
NWFP,
some authorative persons, purchased a bear, to be used as Beating and dancing
bear in fairs. Due to strict laws, policies and efficiency of the Wildlife
Department of NWFP, we were not only able to avert the bear beating event,
but also got successful in taking this bear into our custody. Our job was
made tough due to the influential status of the organizers. .
The rescued bear
was then shifted to Kund Bear Sanctuary, where it is enjoying a
healthy life with other bears.
Most interesting thing about this
bear was that it was a sloth bear, a bear species not found in
Pakistan. This bear was smuggled in to Pakistan from India through a
ship. After this confiscation, relevant wildlife authorities were alerted,
which resulted in significant decrease in smuggling of bears through these
routes.
This bear was named as “Karishma”,
meaning unusual, as it was confiscated from the area where confiscation was
usually not possible. RUSTUM
Our field staff got informed
about a bearbaiting event, scheduled to be arranged in
Punjab, where thousands of people had been invited. As many as 30 bears and
many dogs had been arranged for this event. We informed the relevant government
authorities confidentially and sought their support to obstruct this event.
Due to several reasons,
 our intimation of this event was not taken
seriously. The authorities of the law enforcement department empathetically
stressed that organizing a bearbaiting event was not possible in any part of
the Province
Punjab.
After facing a disappointment from
government authorities, we independently decided to
monitor this event till
the end to provide solid evidences of its occurrence to the authorities.
We
planned to monitor the event through three teams.
One team stayed at the venue of
the event and provided minute to minute
information information on proceed of event to
BRC headquarter, helping us
to manipulate strategy depending on circumstances. Second team was placed in
nearby city as central monitoring and execution team. Third team was
provided with a Cherokee plane to keep aerial monitoring of event and
saving evidences with the eye of the camera.
After long, tough and tiring efforts,
our monitoring team succeeded in capturing all aspects of event through
aerial photography. Photographs of 30 bear, many dogs and thousands of
People sitting as spectators were taken. In this way, irrefusable evidences
of occurrence of event were collected and provided to relevant government
officials to seek their support.
After all our hard work and efforts, government officials finally succeeded
in capturing one bear, which had actually participated in the bearbaiting
event. This bear was initially sent to Rahim Yar Khan Zoo, where it was kept
in a monkey cage.
After completion of legal
formalities, which took about a year, this bear was brought to Kund Bear
Sanctuary, to live a free and peaceful life.
MARVIE
Through the efforts of our monitoring
team we received information about a bear baitin g event, which was being
organized in Udehero Lal, a very far away place in the province of Sindh. We
prepared a team with
support of
Sindh Wildlife Department officials and
collectively chalked out a strategy to get this event
averted. Difficulties were faced in obstructing this event, as the
organizers of the event were very authoritative. These landlords had strong
relations with political parties and police officers of that area, which
made our success doubtful.
After final discussion with wildlife
staff, we decided that we shall take a step for averting this event even in
the absence of any support from police. On our convincing effort, local
police officials assured us that if they were unable to support us, they
would also not support the organizers of baiting event.
As per our strategy we raided the event. When news of raid suddenly spread
in the
crowd, crowd dispersed and the fair was disrupted. Gypsies started
running along
with their bears. We followed two gypsies; one of them escaped
, while the other
unleashed his bear to attack us. But surprisingly, as if
this bear was aware of
all our efforts and hardships, instead of attacking
us it left its owner at its own and very
peacefully entered our vehicle.This bear was brought to
Karachi after an hour of traveling. Detailed examination suggested that this
bear was very badly injured. It appeared very difficult for this bear
to reach Kund Bear Sanctuary, which was about 2,000 km away from Karachi.We tried another
option and planned to take it to sanctuary by air. We counseled with PIA
officials and convinced them. Very soon this bear started its journey
towards its destination by PIA.
Now this bear is one of the strongest
black bears of the sanctuary. It passed longest hibernation in the
sanctuary, indicating that it is reverting to its natural behavior.
SHOA
In
1969,
with the interference of the Federal Government, all the Four Provincial
Wildlife Department s of the country stopped the issuance of licenses,
and hence the captive maintenance and capture of bears from wild as illegal.
In the year 2007, a legislation
was promulgated, where keeping bears of less than four years of age in
custody of
gypsy was considered as illegal. After
this a frame work was formulated , whereby black bears of less than four
years of age could be withdrawn from gypsies.
We started working in this perspective and received information from one of
our monitoring teams about a gypsy, living near
Federal
Capital
Territory,
who had one-year old , two bear cubs. The relevant wildlife officials
were intimated and requested to liberate these bear cubs from illegal gypsy
custody, but in vain. We prepared our own team, assigned with the task of a
full time monitoring of these cubs with the hope that ultimately these cubs
will get released from custody of the gypsy. Fortunately, a ray of
hope emerged when we came to know that the gypsy was trying to move to
another province along with these cubs. We took the matter with the
officials of that Provincial Wildlife Department, and they assured us of
their support. A strategy was formulated with the concerned Wildlife
officials to capture these illegal bear cubs as these enter the province.
For this purpose we required to know
the exact time and place of the entry of the gypsy into the province.
All vehicles entering the province were checked on the expected date. We
evolved a system whereby we were also managed to follow the gypsy family
from their starting point till their entry in respective province. We did no
want to loose this opportunity; therefore our team remained alert till the
end.
All such preplanning, strategies and
efforts fetched us a real success, when we captured one of the bear cubs
from the gypsy custody and managed to arrest him on the charge of
illegal keeping of the bear cubs in his custody.
SUTAIEL
'SUTAIEL' means highly victimized.
Through our monitoring team we received information about the possible
organization of a bearbaiting event in district Dadu (Hyderabad Division). Our
teams immediately rushed to relevant
 district and requested the wildlife
officials and other law enforcement agencies for their support in stopping
the beating event. We were informed that organizers of this event
were very strong and influential in that area and it was not possible for
these agencies to get this event stopped. We felt that we were totally
helpless and we started thinking of almost giving up monitoring of this
event, regarding it as a futile effort.
At that point, we came with an excellent idea. We started monitoring the
expected routes to be used by gypsies for transportation of their bears, The
plan worked well and organizers could find only one bear for baiting event,
as we had successfully averted all bears from reaching the venue of event.
This bear was used in 15 different fights and each time it had faced two
furious dogs.
At the end of the baiting event this
bear was seriously injured. Its muzzle was hanging down with a thin
ligament. Its body was badly injured and bleeding. Owners of this bear were
nearly burying it, when our teams reached to rescue this badly injured bear.
The bear was examined, given first aid ,and transported to the Bear
Sanctuary, where it is living an ensured happy and healthy life.
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Religious based Awareness
Bear Census
Landlord
Networking
Alternative
Livelihood
Anti Poaching
