BEAR necessities!
Giles Clark plays surrogate dad to adorable sun bear Mary
Conservationist Giles Clark has already shared his home with baby jaguars and tigers, as seen in the documentaries Big Cats About the House and Tigers About the House. But nothing had prepared him for the challenge of looking after a mischievous sun bear cub called Mary!
The pair live together under one roof in the two-part documentary Bears About the House, which follows Giles and his friend Matt Hunt as they help build a bear sanctuary in Laos in Southeast
Asia, where thousands of bears are illegally killed for their body parts.
Sun bears are excellent climbers, as Giles found out with Mary.
‘Within weeks, Mary was able to climb up things – me, kitchen cabinets, the bookcase, whatever happened to be in her path!’ he explains. ‘Out in the garden, she’d be straight up a banana tree!’
Painful playtime!
Mary also loved a bit of rough and tumble with her surrogate parent, but with her powerful jaws and razorsharp, curved claws, playtime could be a painful experience for Giles!
‘Sun bears are immensely powerful,’ explains Giles, who runs a big cat sanctuary in Kent. ‘It’s testament to how smart they are that Mary knew there was a difference between playing with us and another bear.’
Although Mary had a traumatic start in life when her mother was killed by poachers, her story has a happy ending as she’s been introduced to another sun bear at the sanctuary and moved to a larger enclosure.
‘Mary just threw herself into it,’ he smiles. ‘Within a week, the bears were inseparable!’