3 of Europe’s ‘Saddest Bears’ Finally Enjoy the Taste of Freedom
Animal advocates are celebrating the successful rescue of three horribly abused Albanian brown bears, Tomi, Gijna and Pashuk, who have just arrived at a sanctuary where they’ll be spending the rest of their lives.
Over the summer, Tomi’s plight in particular made international headlines causing outrage around the world. He was once wild and free, but he was captured and kept in a small cage outside of a restaurant where he was used as a tourist draw and fed bread and beer.
As his story continued to spread, support grew for freeing him from his miserable confines – more than 85,000 people signed a Care2 petition calling for his release.
At the end of August, his advocates celebrated a huge victory when he was officially seized and taken by a team from Four Paws and the Albanian Ministry of Environment, which moved him to a zoo where he would stay for a few weeks before finally heading off to his new sanctuary home.
This week, rescuers from Four Paws welcomed him to his new home at their Bear Sanctuary Prishtina in Kosovo. He’s already enjoying his new accommodations where he has free access to the outdoors and his own pool to play in.
Even better, two more bears arrived with him. Like Tomi, Gijna was also kept in a small cage outside of a restaurant, given beer regularly and was horribly underweight when she was finally rescued. Now she is also now safe at her new home and will be getting plenty of the food she needs.
The last arrival, Pashuk, was also kept in a small cage outside of a restaurant, but he sadly suffered from an embedded chain around his neck that had been put on when he was young and never removed.
“I saw many suffering bears, but I have never seen anything like this. The chain was grown in so deeply that the skin had already grown over it. His owners had put Pashuk on the chain when he was still small, locked him in the shed and never removed the chain ever since,” said Four Paws’ bear expert, Carsten Hertwig.
Pashuk is also now safe at the sanctuary, and while he hasn’t ventured outside to check out his new enclosure yet, it’ll be there when he’s ready.
Unfortunately, these three bears are hardly alone in their suffering. According to Four Paws, there are an estimated 50 more brown bears currently being kept in similar conditions. In an effort to help them, over the summer the organization launched a Save the Saddest Bears campaign in the ultimate hope of securing their freedom and increasing enforcement of laws intended to protect them.
Already, the Ministry of Environment has announced plans to build a sanctuary in the National Park Mali Dajtit to provide a permanent home for rescued bears, and has committed to working to end their captivity, but there’s still more to be done.
How to Help
You can show your support for freeing these bears by signing and sharing Four Paws’ petition urging the Albanian Ministry of Environment to end this cruelty by enforcing the ban on captive bears.
For more info on how to help, check out Four Paws and Save the Saddest Bears.
Photo credit: FourPaws/YouTube
wonderful! I hope the rest of the captive bears are rescued and then we can celebrate a great success-man doing good for our given creatures. So sad that there are so many left to fight for but many happy tears for these.
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