Starving bears beg for food at Indonesian zoo in heartbreaking footage (VIDEO)

A horrific video showing starving bears has emerged of emaciated sun bears begging for food at Bandung Zoo in Indonesia. A petition calling for the zoo’s closure has garnered almost a quarter of million signatures.
The disturbing images show two bears begging for food from tourists as onlookers throw junk food to the animals in a macabre display. The unfortunate creatures are kept in a grim enclosure surrounded by murky water and no obvious signs of food.

“Sun Bears kept in the Bandung Zoo are so hungry they eat their own feces,” the petition reads, adding that the animals be transferred to a “conservation or sanctuary where they can be taken care of.” Sun bears are native to Indonesia and other South Asian countries, and are also known as the honey bear for its love of honey. They are the smallest, least well-known and one of the rarest of all the bear species.

Earlier videos released by the same group, Indonesia-based NGO Scorpion Foundation, show elephants at the Bandung Zoo in West Java in shackles, deer with a “shockingly bad” skin condition, and a sun bear which appears to be eating its own feces — an activity described by animal experts as stemming from boredom.

The Jakarta Globe reported that the head of a local conservation agency had described the cause of Yani’s death as “neglect”. The zoo’s only veterinarian had resigned in 2015.

Bears thin but ‘healthy’ spokesperson says

But a spokesperson for the privately owned zoo has reportedly claimed that this is an “old case” and that there is no problem.

“People say they are thin, but does (that) mean they are not healthy and they are not eating? It’s not,” Sudaryo told BBC Indonesia

Reviews of the zoo on crowd-sourced travel tips website Trip Advisor are typically scathing, with numerous commenters urging people not to visit the zoo, and to shut it down.

“The animals are dying of neglect,” wrote one commenter in August of 2016.

In May 2016, another person described the zoo as “a horrible place, hell on earth for these poor animals”.

The Bandung Zoo is one of many in Indonesia to be accused of maltreatment of animals.

In 2013 the ABC reported that 50 animals died in three months at the Surabaya Zoo, including an orangutan, three tigers, and a giraffe. At the time it was dubbed the “zoo of death”.

Sources:

Urgent! Sign This Petition to Shut Down Indonesian Zoo Where Animals are Starving

https://www.rt.com/viral/374139-bears-beg-food-indonesia-zoo/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-19/bandung-zoo-sun-bear-cruelty/8192596