The Indian sloth bear is one of the helpless victims of animal cruelty on the Indian sub-continent. They are not alone, because other bears suffer horrible abuses as well. Sloth bears are killed every year for their gallbladders, also the claws, bile, and genital organs. The gallbladder and bile, which is excreted from the gallbladder, are used in Chinese folk medicine along with the genitals. The claws are expensive trinkets to sell on the black market along with the other bear products. The severe poaching of sloth bears for their body parts and taking of bear cubs to be trained for "dancing," has taken its toll on the population. It is now on the World Conservation Union's red list of threatened animals. Human encroachment into their wild habitat by quarrying, mining, illegal tree felling, and mass deforestation has scattered the bears into small, fragmented groups in south and east India. There is a sub species in Sri Lanka as well.
When the sloth bear cubs are poached, they are sometimes taken out of their dens much too soon. A cub usually doesn't leave the den until it is 3 months old, but poachers have taken them as young as 5 weeks. As many as 70% of the babies may not make it adulthood because of the animal cruelty perpetrated upon them when so young. They are put in sacks and taken to Kalandar (Qalandar) villages to be sold and trained by the Kalandar as dancing bears. Kalandar men are the traditional trainers that make the bears perform silly antics and dances for the tourists. Or they may go to rural villages when the men think it isn't safe to be near the cities.
Every year wild animals are taken from the wild illegally and killed or captured for profit. There are animals being tortured or worked literally to death. They do not have the proper care or nutrition and their lives are nothing but pain. The only way they will ever be free is if we help, any way we can. I give to the WSPA as much as I can. Only 14.00 a month can help save an animal from misery and starvation. Think about it.
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