Dancing Bears
Young bears are captured in the wild, separated from their mothers, and taught by a trainer to become dancing bears in conditions of unimaginable cruelty.
How the bears are trained to dance
The young animals are forced onto sheets of glowing hot metal and, in order to escape the pain, the bears alternate lifting up one paw and then another while a music is played. The process is repeated again and again until the animals automatically begin to raise their paws - to "dance" - in fear of the pain, even when there are no metal sheets.
 As the bears get older the trainers keep them under control by inflicting pain. They do this by putting rings through the bears highly sensitive noses and jaws. No aesthetic is used for this painful process. Chains are attached to the rings so that the trainers can control the animals, which weigh up to 350 kilograms, with only a slight tug on the chains.
The bear’s claws are trimmed several times a year and their teeth broken or removed so they can’t injure their trainer. The bears also suffer with an inadequate diet that usually consists of white bread, sugar and alcoholic schnapps. All these cause serious physical health problems for the bears. Many also display stereotypic behaviours such as swaying and pacing and self mutilation as they can’t follow natural behavioural patterns and instincts.
Bears in the wild
Brown bears (Ursus arctos) were once widespread across Europe, but now only survive in reasonable numbers in the forests of Scandinavia, Romania, Russia, Montenegro and Serbia.
 There are also small populations in Austria, the Pyrenees and the Abruzzi mountains of Italy. It is estimated that there are currently 14,000 wild bears in Europe (excluding Russia).
Bear cubs are usually born in January/February and suckled until April/May in the winter den. They are born with their eyes closed and are covered in short grey hair. Cubs usually stay with the mother bear until she mates again which can be between 12 and 36 months after the cubs are born.
The father isn't involved in rearing the cubs so they learn how to forage for food, make dens and other survival skills from the mother. Cubs raised in captivity can't survive in the wild because they haven’t learned these survival skills.
Brown bears have no natural enemies and forage for food alone so have no need to live in a group. However, some poachers shoot the mother to prevent her from defending her cubs and then take the young cubs to sell or to train for dancing. Many cubs die from neglect before they reach their final destination. FOUR PAWS have a bear orphange to help cubs whose mothers have been killed or captured.
No one knows how many bears are separated from their mother each year to be trained as dancing bears.
The future
Although the training of dancing bears has been prohibited in the European Union since 1998, there are still many dancing bears in other European countries, Albania, Serbia and Russia. FOUR PAWS is campaigning to rescue these bears and to ban the training of dancing bears in further European countries.
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