March 18 2007
Hungry Bears
posted by Ana Samways at 6:48 pmHokkaido Zoo in Japan. Amazing and a little sad.
Spare Room Be our guest…
Edited by Ana Samways & Steven Shaw
Edited by Ana Samways & Steven Shaw
March 18 2007
Hokkaido Zoo in Japan. Amazing and a little sad.
March 19th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Is that what we look like to them? Very good impersonations of gawping humans. And yes, a little sad.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:18 am
this is the saddest excuse for a zoo I have ever seen…..Japan you should be ashamed! One has to ask the question why are so many bears in one enclosure……in the name of science maybe?!?
March 19th, 2007 at 9:54 am
It is sad to see all of them in such a small enclosure. But it is also amazing to see how they learnt to communicate with people ….
March 19th, 2007 at 10:34 am
That’s the most depressing thing I’ve seen in a long while.
Poor creatures reduced to begging for scraps from giggling Massa by imitating Massa’s behavious – hmmm, nice metaphor for competitive capitalism really…
If a party of Japanese schoolkids can have a melt down when a bloke in a fur suit pretends to be an ‘escaped animal’, and these ‘adults’ can’t see wild animals in mental anguish but some deranged form of cartoon Mr Hello Bear, what can you expect from a society that anthropomorhises every creature on the planet, except whales obviously.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:27 am
And just another example of cultural gap… Europeans feel guilty seeing this, most Asians won’t. Yes it is sad seeing animals in this situation, would they be any safer in the wild?
In reply to Dunksters comment… whales NOT anthromorphised? You definitely have not seen Spongebob Squarepants or other similar childrens cartoons
March 19th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Bryn, do you have evidence that they are safer in these zoos than in the wild, or is that random speculation? Bear parks in Japan are a real problem. The bears are underfed, hence why they beg for scraps from the visitors, making their diets are woefully inadequate. Bears are naturally solitary in the wild, and having so many sharing an enclosure leads to severe stress and behavioural problems such as fighting and injury. Simply, they are exploited by the zoo owners for money, but agencies like WSPA are doing a great job to educate the Japanese public that this is unethical.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Oh yes, lets blame an entire race- very mature guys (not you Anna). Half the voices there were speaking Chinese. In China, they cut bears stomachs open and tap the bile/acid to make medicines.
In Europe, bears are shot on site to defend farms and livestock.
Japanese zoos are very poor quality and the animals look sad, I’ve seen them first hand, but there are much worse things much closer to home than most people will admit.
March 19th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Bryn, as far as I’m aware, SpongeBob is not the product of the Japanese animation industry…
March 19th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Sad…very very sad.
March 19th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Whats wrong with you Sideswipe people? Youve already highlighted a video that showed a Lion getting half-shot to death, and you can see that most of the people commenting on this bear video find it distasteful rather than funny. Those bears should be roaming free in the woods where they belong, not cooped up en-masse begging for scraps. Its pathetic not comedic.
March 19th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Their level of safety is not the issue. YOU’D be safer in a padded room, maybe should we put YOU in one?
March 19th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Ollie: You’ll note under the post I said it was “amazing and a little sad” – which would indicate I wasn’t suggesting look-at-these-hilarious-frigging- bears. Also, humour is allowed to have pathos, if it does it can generate healthy debate, which both these posts you mention have.
March 19th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Here’s one for dignity – it only costs 100 Yen to buy the food that the bears beg for.
I personally saw this when I went to Hokkaido last July. Many people in my tour group were amused by the bears’ mannerisms but I was personally disgusted and saddened by it. Not that I am an animal rights activist or anything like that, but we wouldn’t do this to your own family pet, so why should we expect wild animals to do the same thing?
March 19th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
omg at all of you’s. Prove it they are all hungry. Prove they are being mistreated. Prove they don’t like each others company. Stop pretending you are the bear and know what’s best for them. last time someone thought they were a bear got eatened by one.
and Mable says who we don’t do taht to our own family pets. do you not make your dog do tricks for a bit of pathetic snack? does your cat not wrap her/him self around you when he/she wants some food or cuddle.
from that video i find the bears to be pretty happy. up and about. getting food.
but in saying all that, i do think that lion should have ate those cowards hiding behind the rifles.
my 2 c on your 2c’s
March 19th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
this is sad.. sad sad sad
March 20th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Fair enough Ana. But in reply to Shane: Maybe I would be safer in a padded room, but would I be happier?