More than a year ago, sun bears at the POD Chocolate Factory and
Café in Bali were used as photo props to entertain tourists. Formerly rescued
and entrusted to the facility for life-long care, Scorpion Wildlife Trade
Monitoring group together with its partners Animal Asia and Change for Animal
Foundation strongly opposed the animal interaction sessions, and the
exploitation of animals in this way, that resulted in immense stress to the animals,
poor living conditions and promoted the notion that animals are there for tourist
entertainment..
On Saturday 26th January (2019), an investigator from
Scorpion visited the facility again and found no more photo sessions with sun bears.
The sun bears are still being housed at the facility, but now
tourists can only watch from outside the bears’ enclosure, and photo sessions
are no longer available. This is great
news for the bears who no longer have to endure the daily stress of such
interactions, and the animals can now live in peace whilst helping to educate
the public about the plight of bears in Indonesia and around the world.
As always, we will continue to monitor the situation.
No more photo session with sunbears at POD Chocolate Factory and Café.
Some of the sunbears are kept inside this confinement.
The former photo session arena with sunbears at POD Chocolate
Factory and Café.
