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Thema: Education & Awareness

Although brown bears are legally protected in Albania, many wild bears are poached and very little is done to control poaching activities. Keeping bears in captivity is also forbidden by law. However, research carried out by the local partner in Albania ‘PPNEA’ in 2014, indicated that a total of at least 41 bears are kept under sub-optimal conditions. Poor law enforcement as well as endemic corruption in the country have led to a further decline in the wild bear population. According to estimates by the LCIE (Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe) the wild bear population in Albania varies between 180 and 250 individuals (2016).

Reasons for keeping bears
To unveil the motivations behind and actors involved in this phenomenon PPNEA (financially supported by Bears in Mind) undertook a quantitative survey with visitors of premises that hold bears in captivity and qualitative group interviews in rural areas that are known as hotspots of bears’ capture and trade. The results indicated that the motivation of the local rural population in capturing and selling bears is mainly economic (bear cubs sell for amounts between 250 – 600 EUR / individual). However the captures are done randomly or when the chance is given and that regular hunting / trapping for this sole purpose seems to be non-exitent. This suggests that this activity is not a major source of income for locals and captured brown bear cubs seem to be a side phenomenon that reflects the general problems of hunting management and law enforcement in the country. On the other hand, a more problematic issue is that there is a general interest to visit places where bears are exposed and the figures are frightening. Only 20% of respondents declared that they do not have any interest to visit a restaurant / cafe because of the bear presence. In addition there also exists a misconception among the population that the captive bears are a touristic asset for the country. The data shows that almost 70% of respondents believe that the bears in captivity attract tourists; this is a much higher figure if compared to 45% of those who believe that the bear in nature attract more tourists.

There is also a low awareness level among visitors in respect to the illegality of capturing / keeping bears in captivity and protection status of the animal. Only 35% of respondents were aware of some vague legal protection status. These misconceptions about captive bears are major drivers that help such illegal business to operate. Furthermore the attitudes of the public are hostile in terms of undertaking any action to stop the illegal practise of maintaining captive bears in restaurants: 54% of interviewed persons where against the elimination and 64% of them will do nothing to solve the problem.

The low level of awareness among the general public in Albania is holding back potential solutions to the bear issues in Albania. Therefore the gap in knowledge should be filled by an effectively organized public-awareness campaign and social mobilization should follow up to try to stop the influx of captive bears in restaurants which subsequently will improve the situation for the wild population.

Future
It is unclear what will happen to the many captive bears in Albania in the near future. Bears in Mind and her partners keep pushing the government to act and start developing a sanctuary to accommodate all the bears, but until now these attempts have proven unsuccessful. Once new developments will arise, it will be published on our website. Over the past years, many captive bears have been relocated to sanctuaries and zoos outside of Albania, by a number of NGOs. This does not solve the problem and the government has to step up and take responsibility.

Update 2022
Over the past ten years, all captive bears used for entertainment (like the restaurant bears) have been relocated to foreign sanctuaries and zoos. Longterm plans by the Albanian government to set up their own bear sanctuary and take responsibility for their captive bear problem, failed.

How it all started…
The beginning of the idea and need to do something substantial for captive bears in Europe goes back more than 30 years. In 1990, Ouwehand Zoo in the Netherlands was asked by the Directorate-General (European Commission) to draw up a plan to accommodate several captive (ex-dancing) bears from Greece. Those would be confiscated following a change in legislation. The use of dancing bears as street entertainment was not only banned in Greece, but also in Turkey. In the years that followed (more than 200 bears needed to be rehomed), two large bear sanctuaries were built in the abovementioned countries and dozens of bears were saved under the LiBearty campaign set up by then WSPA and for Greece it was mainly ARCTUROS liberating dancing bears and providing them a new home.

Mackenzie in his cage in Bosnia Herzegovina
Mackenzie being fed by Dutch UN soldiers

More bears needed a new home (amongst them three blind dancing bears from Turkey) and following the initial request by the EC, Ouwehand Zoo was able to finally answer this request with the start of the development of the Bear Forest, a sanctuary for mistreated European brown bears. A separate foundation was created to manage this bear sanctuary, and the International Bear Foundation was born when phase one was finished of this special project in April 1993. Two brown bears already in Ouwehand Zoo, moved in first: Geert & Trudy. Followed by the rescue of bears Mackenzie & Nelly from former Yugoslavia and the rescue of lonely bear Jo from a bear pit in Maastricht – The Netherlands. The three Turkish blind bears Bora, Koröglû & Fiona were rescued and introduced into their new forever homes during autumn of 1993. Many more bears would follow suit…

Bora
Koröglû
Fiona

In the years since then, the foundation has had multiple names, but ever since 2016 they have been operating under the name ‘Bears in Mind’. Bears in Mind is a valued member of and operates within several network organizations like the IUCN (World Conservation Union), EAZA (European Association of Zoos & Aquaria), EARS (European Alliance of Rescue Centers & Sanctuaries) and the IBA (International Association for Bear Research & Management).

The Bear Forest sanctuary
For more than 30 years, the sanctuary for bears has been able to offer peaceful asylum to 36 brown bears in total. From circuses, private collections, theaters, film industry, road-side zoos to bears that were kept next to a restaurant or petrol station. Unfortunately, captive bears are found under many horrific and often shameful conditions. As of May 2025, 9 bears inhabit the Bear Forest: two from a former hunting farm in Bulgaria, two from war-torn Ukraine where they were kept next to a restaurant and a small children’s zoo until their rescue, one bear from a closed-down zoo in Georgia, one bear from private ownership in Bosnia and Herzegovina and one was from Sweden where she was kept as playing companion for a polar bear cub found on the sea ice and eventually both of them ended up in Ouwehand Zoo. The last two, rescued in April 2025, are two bears from a bombed zoo in Ukraine.

The bears live together with a small pack of four wolves. These animals are kept together in this mixed-species environment as a way of mimicking their natural environment. The interaction between wolves and bears stimulates the natural behavior of both species, beneficial for all. The wolves are mostly given meat, whereas the bears only eat little amounts of meat as part of their very diverse seasonal diet, based on what they would find in the wild. Bears in Mind introduced the Natural Feeding Program in 1999 and in the first year there was already a major difference noticeable in the behaviour of the bears, with many of them going into hibernation for the very first time! This was a clear sign that the natural behaviour of these traumatized animals could be restored if the right ‘tools’ and care was offered.

The sanctuary is 20,000m2 in size, has a large pool for the bears to drink/swim/cool down and play in, with a waterfall. It is part of the surrounding natural forest which borders the zoo and it has 11 artificial dens and two small wooden shacks for the bears to shelter from the weather or hibernate in. Before entering the Bear Forest, visitors are walking through ‘Karpatica’, a series of simulated Romanian-style houses with informative and interactive educational material for young and old. About the biology and ecology of bears in general, threats to bears and their habitat, and of course about Bears in Mind and their projects around the globe.

Since The Bear Forest is part of the general walking route through Ouwehand Zoo, almost one million visitors a year can view the bears and learn about them. This poses a huge opportunity to Bears in Mind, to try and reach these visitors and make them part of their conservation mission: to create a better world where bears and people can coexist in.

www.bearalert.org

Bear Alert is developed by the coalition of Bears in Mind and Foundation for Bears to keep track of the many captive bears, often living under horrible conditions, in order to help as many individuals as possible. Over time, Bears in Mind and Foundation for Bears have gathered information on more than 800 of these bears. Some of them have already been rescued from their miserable existence and brought to a sanctuary or zoo where proper care and space could be offered. Other bears unfortunately died before we could we do anything. And some of them still await a better life…

The individual reports about bears will be processed into a database. Short term solutions will be considered next. In most cases the foundation’s staff will consult with their local partner NGO and / or with the owner of the animal to give advise on husbandry, food and water. Simple enrichment methods for the cages are used such as leafy tree branches or a play object. These methods are often cheap and easy to create and make the life of the bear somewhat more pleasant. In other cases, if legally possible, bears will be confiscated and relocated to a better facility. 

The coalition launched Bear Alert as a new platform in 2024. More easy to use on a smartphone, with more and better direct sharing possibilities, so we can help these captive bears in a more efficient way.   

Semperviva is a Bulgarian organization which started to breed livestock uarding dogs again. Every year, one or two litters of puppies are raised. When the puppies are old enough they are taken (for free) to pre-selected shepherds, who sign an agreement confirming their understanding of how to take care of the dogs. The dogs need to work in pairs and very often a younger pup is trained by an adult dog. With its follow-up programme Semperviva checks on the dogs twice a year until they are confident that the dogs behaviour is appropriate. Bears in Mind funded the breeding project between 2002-2011.

In the old days, the Karakachan dog breed was used specially to protect flocks of sheep. The Semperviva programme makes it possible for shepherds to obtain a puppy and receive training in how to care for the dogs and use them to protect their livestock. Every year, a dozen puppies were placed in the eastern part of the Rhodopy mountains in Bulgaria. Furthermore, the number of attacks by bears and wolves before and after the introduction of the dogs are compared. Over the years, it has been proven that flocks accompanied by these dogs have suffered substantially less losses to large carnivores.

In 2008 Indian wildlife NGO ‘WildlifeSOS’ started the training of rangers under the project: ‘Asiatic black bear Conservation Education and Training Programme in Kashmir, India’. They were trained to deal with the capture of bears and other wild animals. Practice with a tranquilizer gun was very important. In addition, they were also trained in dealing with angry mobs that wanted to kill bears or leopards that came too close, also in retalliation as resulting in conflicts. Wild animals should be calmly approached and treated. This minimizes stress levels and is safer for the ranger / handler. There are a number of trained people now in almost every region of the project. They respond immediately, as soon as a bear incident is reported.

Local people learn about the behaviour of wild animals and how they can avoid conflicts. Once there has been an incident with a bear or other wild animal somewhere, village meetings are held. The people of WildlifeSOS explain how the bears can be kept as far from the villages as possible. They also teach the communities how to avoid bears in the future and urge them to report every bear incident as quickly as possible. Even schoolchildren are included in the education programme. They learn about bears, how beautiful they are, but also how important they are to the ecosystem. Through workshops and training the locals will have a more positive attitude towards bears. Moreover, their fear for bears will decrease. Almost every bear incident is reported, unlike before. In the past the only message that came from the village with a bear incident was that the bear had been burned alive or stoned to death. Not only bears benefit from this project; virtually no other wild animal in this area has been killed by the locals ever since it started.

The bear sanctuary ‘Tat Kuang Si’, managed by Free the Bears (FTB) provides shelter to many Asiatic black bears and Malayan sun bears. Most of these bears were confiscated and rescued at an early age from poachers by the government of Lao with help from FTB. More than 200,000 people from Lao PDR and abroad visit the sanctuary annually. Through an education program, visitors can learn more about both bears and the illegal trade in wildlife in Lao PDR.

Aside from the education program, research into human-bear conflict (HWC) was carried out in the field. These conflicts lead to people developing a negative attitude towards bears. Bears regularly seek food in the corn fields surrounding the national parks and can thus destroy a complete crop. Earlier research in 2010 showed that most villages were invaded regularly by bears looking for corn. Park rangers are trained to address these human-bear conflicts immediately and effectively. Bear sightings are reported through a special ‘hotline’.

The HWC study between 2011 and 2013 was funded by Bears in Mind.

FTB has been working actively in Southeast Asia for many years and has successfully tackled the problems in Lao PDR from the source. In 2011, FTB started a campaign in their bear sanctuary ‘Tat Kuang Si’ to raise awareness among the local population and the government concerning the issues wild bears are facing. FTB also reinforces legislation and offers hunters an alternative source of income.

With financial support from Bears in Mind, a mobile education and emergency bear rescue vehicle was purchased. It was also used for transportation of small groups from Luang Prabang to ‘Tat Kuang Si’ in order to join on-site education activities, used for the transportation of educators and equipment to remote areas or other provincial capitals for outreach work, and of course for bear rescue interventions.

There is much discussion about whether rehabilitated bears are likely to become problem bears. Therefore, data collected in this project is of paramount importance to this discussion. Of course we would prefer to be able to release orphaned bears in the wild again, rather than putting them in captivity for the rest of their lives. However, we must be absolutely certain that the rehabilitation process has no negative impact on their natural behaviour, increasing the chances of the released bear becoming a ‘problem bear’.

Between 2008 and 2013, a total of 19 bears have been equipped with GPS/GSM collars in order to assess the suitability of rehabilitated bears for reintroduction in the natural habitats. Ten of these bears were reared in the Romanian Rehabilitation Center (developed by Bear Again) and nine were wild caught individuals of two behavior categories: (1) wild behaving juveniles and (2) individuals with different degrees of habituation to anthropogenic food sources. The project revealed and proved that reintroduction of the rehabilitated bears into the wild is successful and without any threatening impact on the wild population. The survival rate of the rehabilitated tracked bears was around 50% (it is 55% considering all the rehabilitated bears). This is according with the survival rate of juvenile wild bears in the literature. One of the most important regulating factors can be considered the infanticide killing by adult male bears. An important threat is poaching.

Monitoring the bears and collar results is still ongoing.

2020 onwards
One of the basics of the rehabilitation technique is keeping the cubs in a system of several enclosures that offer 100% natural habitat. In this environment, the bears can develop their inborn instincts during a 1 – 1,5 years of rehab period. The facilities are surrounded by electrical fences. The electrical fence on one hand keeps the young bears inside the facilities and keeps intruder adult male bears or other predators out. The main aim of the support offered by Bears in Mind to this project has been directed towards improvement of the total electrical system of the Rehab Centre in order to keep the cubs safe, improve data communication and decrease the risk of depredation by males from outside. Next to that, the development of several remote cableway feeding systems have been sponsored. This allows the team from Bear Again to get the food to the bear cubs without being noticed. This way, these bears won’t associate food with people, an important lession for their future!

Wild Polar bears and Sun bears live in parts of the world where living conditions can be considered extreme. Polar bears lives in Northern Arctic regions, where temperatures are often well below zero Celsius for the majority of the year. The Sun bear lives in tropical Southeast Asia with average temperatures of around 28 degrees above zero and almost 100% humidity. Both bear species are threatened in the wild by climate change and destruction of their habitat.

Polar bears and Sun bears are kept in many zoos around the world. Bears in captivity are exposed to different outside temperatures than they are ‘build for’ and used to all year round in the wild. In captivity, the upper temperature limit of Polar bears and the lower temperature limit of Sun bears are often exceeded. Until now, the effects of this on the species’ metabolisms have hardly been investigated.

This study by the University of Köln, funded by Bears in Mind between 2010-2012, looked into which behavioural and autonomic mechanisms for thermoregulation are available for the respective species, to examine to which degree behavioural regulation complement physiological mechanisms to minimise energy expenditure, and to determine the range of the thermoneutral zone for the respective species. The study took place in several European zoos during summer and winter conditions.

This project titled “Brown bear conservation and research program in a model area in Romania” is one of the longest continual projects supported by Bears in Mind, started in 2006. It has many topics, focusing on research on the bear population and conservation of bears in the Eastern Carpathians in Romania, with the aim to prevent bear-human conflicts. Damages caused by bears to livestock and crops are closely monitored. Research on denning behaviour and locations, knowledge about bear home ranges, movement and activity patterns, habitat use and food searching behaviour of the bears, is also carried out. Over the years, many bears have been fitted with radio collars to monitor their behaviour and gather as much data as possible.

Together with the help of local farmers, electric fences surrounding orchards and beehives are tested and placed. Milvus participates in public discussions on bears, organizes educational projects in schools, field excursions and develops educational material. They are mitigating plans for a new highway through prime bear habitat and have done extensive research on the impact on the population. Additionally, every year Milvus receives dozens of calls about orphaned (sometimes injured) bear cubs. After treatment by Vets4Wild (partner of Milvus), the cubs are sent to the rehabilitation centre run by Bear Again.

Improving the social acceptance of the species
Since 2018, Bears in Mind provides funding for a campaign to improve the acceptance of bears in Romania. Through a ten-episode mini-series, Milvus aimes to spread correct and factual information on bears, to try to counterbalance the omnipresent negative rhetoric (and frequent misinformation) in the Hungarian and Romanian massmedia. Each episode was realized in both Hungarian and Romanian languages, with both versions having English subtitles (these can be switched on in YouTube, CC button for Episode 1, and are embedded in each subsequent episode). Each episode was shared on Milvus Group’s own Facebook page, on YouTube, as well as on the Milvus Group webpage. For the shares on our Facebook page, we also had funding to advertise each episode. Ten episodes have been produced:

In the Russian Far East, two of the world’s most endangered big cats occur: the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) and the Amur or Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica). The estimated wild population (2021) of these leopards is around 100 individuals and the tiger population hangs around 500-550 animals. The necessity to protect these two species is eminently clear and will also benefit the brown bear and Asiatic black bear populations, which occur in the same habitat. The Phoenix Foundation has organized many different activities, ranging from educational activities for kids, asking media attention, executing research projects and setting up anti-poaching teams. Bears in Mind supports the anti-poaching teams.

Red Wolf Brigade
Since January 2002 the Red Wolf anti-poaching team has been patrolling the perimeter and the core of the wildlife refuge. Their activities range from confiscating poached wildlife, illegal rifles and fining people for violation of hunting regulations. The rangers are also involved in making fire breaks and providing food and saltlicks during harsh winters for the prey animals of the leopards and tigers. They also visit schools and give lectures to people who visit the forests.

Borisovkoye Plateau
Borisovkoye Plateau wildlife refuge has always been considered as one of the best remaining tracts of the leopard habitat. During the tiger census in January 2000 the tracks of seven leopards, two or three tigers, and 60-70 fresh ungulate tracks (per 10 km² of route) were found on the monitoring site including the Borisovkoye Plateau wildlife refuge and Nezhinskoye hunting society. The 2003-2005 surveys showed the same leopard and tiger density. It proves the important role that protection of territories and anti-poaching activities play in leopard and tiger conservation.

The important anti-poaching work done by Phoenix Fund was continued & supported between 2013 and 2015 by Bears in Mind.

Partner:

Phoenix Fund