© FOUR PAWS
TIRANA, Aug. 31 – Bear Tomi who recently made international headlines because of the miserable conditions he lived caged in a restaurant in northern Albania has been rescued and brought to a temporary home at Tirana zoo before being transferred to a Bear Sanctuary in Prishtina. The operation was concluded following a petition initiated by Four Paws, an international animal welfare organization based in Vienna, which pushed Albanian authorities to enforce a ban on the cruel keeping of bears.
The UK’s Daily Mail online published two articles in the past two months featuring pictures of how Tomi, the caged brown bear, was kept in a restaurant in the Albanian mountains as a tourist attraction and relied on sweets and crisps from visitors, begging with outstretched paws.
“There are currently around 50 bears across Albania living in tiny cages and used as tourist attractions and photo props. Nearly all of these bears began their life in the wild and have been taken illegally to live their lives in chains. Although bear species are protected by both Albanian and International law, the trade of bears and cubs in Albania has been flourishing for many years,” says the Four Paws organization which managed to collect more than 56,000 signatures in an online Save the Saddest Bears in Europe petition.
“Brown bear cubs are regularly snatched away from their mothers in the wild and traded illegally throughout the country to be exploited as tourist attractions or kept as pets in terrible conditions by people who have no idea how to meet the needs of these beautiful and complex wild animals,” says Four Paws.
Albania’s environment ministry said it has also recently saved two five-month bear cubs miserably held for entertainment purposes in the coastal town of Saranda, southern Albania, and provided shelter at the Tirana Zoo. Their owner was arrested.
“The State Inspectorate on Environment and Forests will continue working on finding, confiscating bears and all other protected animals held in violation of the law,” says director Ergys Agasi.
The brown bear, currently in danger of extinction, is a protected species by Albanian legislation, while captivity for commercial purposes is banned.
The environment ministry says it is receiving technical assistance by Four Paws to set up the first Bear Sanctuary in Albania.
Albania has sent some nine freed bears to Kosovo, Greece, Germany and Italy during this year.
The Tirana-based PPNEA organisation for protection and preservation of natural environment in Albania says the number of brown bears has drastically dropped in the past two decades with their current number estimated at 250.
“The brown bear population in Albania is decreasing mainly because of habitat degradation and other human related activities. More specifically, one of the most threatening factors is illegal capturing of bear cubs. Even though, the country has ratified various international conventions and has a national legal framework according to which it is totally forbidden to hunt brown bears and subsequently to keep them in captivity, in many restaurants, cafà©s and other public spaces you can notice bears being held in cages or stuffed bears,” says the organisation.
Albania has banned hunting for the past couple of years and imposed a new five-year moratorium this year to put an end to uncontrolled and illegal hunting, which has decimated wildlife populations in the country over the last two and a half decades.
