Video of world’s ‘saddest polar bear’ in China sparks outrage
hong kong — A global campaign to free the world’s “saddest polar bear” from a Chinese shopping centre has gathered one million signatures, rights groups said, as a new video of the wretched-looking creature sparked fresh outrage.
The bear named Pizza is one of 500 species kept in a zoo inside the mall in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and activists have been lobbying for the animals to be rehomed and the exhibition closed.
Letters signed by 50 Chinese animal rights groups were sent to the governor of Guangdong province and the shopping centre this week calling for the zoo’s closure on the grounds it is illegal.
Animals, including an arctic fox, wolf and walrus, are kept in “small rooms with no window and environmental > Pizza is one of 500 species kept in a zoo inside the mall in the Chinese city of Guangzhou > Letters signed by 50 Chinese animal rights groups were sent to the governor of the province. enrichment”, said a copy of the letter sent to Governor Zhu Xiaodan and seen by the news agency. “Such conditions are far from their natural habitat and would cause inevitable harm to their mental and physical health.”
Two petitions that had gathered a total of one million signatures from around the world were also sent to Zhu. > Animals, including an arctic fox, wolf and walrus, are kept in small rooms with no window > Activists have been lobbying for the animals to be rehomed and the exhibition closed.
Qin Xiaona, director of the Beijing-based Capital Animal Welfare Association and one of the signatories of the letters, told AFP on Friday they were still waiting for a response. The general manager of the atraction, a man surnamed Fan, declined to immediately comment when AFP contacted him by telephone on Friday. Fan said previously that the zoo was “legally compliant” but pledged to “strengthen the protection of animal rights and welfare”.
But a video released by Humane Society International this week shows Pizza pacing around his glass-fronted enclosure measuring 40 square metres and shaking his head as onlookers take photos on their cell phones.
At one point the forlorn-looking bear lies on the floor in front of an air vent, which HSI director of international media Wendy Higgins said suggested he was trying to get a “rush of fresh air”. Pizza’s behaviour — head swaying and repetitive pacing — had been induced by “frustration and poor welfare”, Prof. Alastair Macmillan, a veterinary adviser to HSI, said after viewing the footage. —
Activists demand to rehome animals