Bulgarian hotel bear Monti - Update!
The fact that Bulgarian bear Monti spent most of the one and half years of his life in a hotel does not mean it was a life of luxury - by any standards. A tiny, 9 m² shed in which the fast growing wild animal was locked up was its sparse and entirely unacceptable habitat. When he was discovered by FOUR PAWS employees, the local authorities were alerted and arrangements made for Monti’s confiscation and transfer to DANCING BEARS PARK Belitsa. An expert team of vets and bear keepers was able to pick him up just three days after his chance discovery. Now the young animal is learning what it is like to be a bear as he settles in at FOUR PAWS’ largest bear sanctuary.
 Once released into his enclosure, Monti started to take in the unfamiliar environment – as well as the sounds and scents of his conspecifics. 26 other bears live at DANCING BEARS PARK Belitsa; most of them are animals that were raised to work as dancing bears – a cruel and painful tradition which was terminated by the efforts of FOUR PAWS in 2007. Like all new arrivals, Monti will spend the initial period at a smaller enclosure that is located close to the main building, which makes it easier to monitor his settling in. For a start, he looks increasingly confident and eats well – both are excellent indicators that his health has not been seriously affected by the gruesome living conditions he grew up in and that he can be released into a bigger enclosure with other bears before the winter.
An industry on the rise: the Bulgarian hunting business
The question that is still unresolved is how the hotel got hold of the animal in the first place. In spite of Bulgaria having very good animal rights legislation, its implementation is still voluntary and cruelty to animals is not yet considered a crime. He could have been sold off by a derelict zoo, but it is more likely that he was caught and sold after his mother was killed by hunters. More than 300,000 hunters are registered in the country, although the main problem remains the thriving hunting industry, which attracts mostly foreign tourists from Germany, Austria, Italy and Greece. Even though wild bears are a protected species, illegal trophy hunters pay up to € 30.000 for the opportunity to shoot a male brown bear. Monti’s future, however, is a safe one. Due to growing up in captivity, he cannot be re-released into the wild, but he will be able to enjoy the best care available and a spacious natural habitat at DANCING BEARS PARK Belitsa.
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