Dancing Bears Refuge Park Tour

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• Duration: 1 day(s)
• Location: Dancing Bears Refuge Park near Belitsa

When arriving at the park you are strongly advised NOT to tease or feed the bears. You should also try to keep as quiet as possible and try not to interfere in their life.

The Dancing Bears Park in Rila Mountain

By Izodora Angel

When I was a child of about eight or nine, as most my peers I took the world for granted, and all things in it at face value... Imagine then my bewilderment and confusion, verging on dismay, when one day walking home from school, I saw a gypsy merrily marching down the street with a gadulka (rebeck) in one hand, pulling a sickly-looking brown bear tied to a chain, which went trough his muzzle, on the transparent pretence that the poor animal was dancing. It was the first of many times that I was to witness this pitiful performance. Repulsive as the sight was, I made myself believe it was perhaps a socially accepted from of entertainment, because nobody did anything about it, and bystanders even gave money to the gypsy for his spectacle.

When, in 1999, representatives from the NGO for animal rights and protection Vier Pfoten International were at the Black Sea, and they witnessed a similar sight, they were absolutely astounded, and immediately began plans for a park to be built where the bears would be free, and as close to their natural habitat as possible. The Bulgarian branch of Vier Pfoten was opened in May of 2000, and in 2001 a contract was made between the foundation and Bulgaria's Ministry of Environment and Water for all registered bears to be considered in an expansion of the originally planned park.

Brigitte Bardot, the celebrated French movie star of the 1950s - turned animal - rights activist in her more mature years, acting as benefactor of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation financially supported the project after hearing about it in 2002.

The special park was built atop Rila Mountain, a haven for these tortured animals, a place where all so-called ‘dancing bears' would find refuge and be taken care of properly, in as natural a habitat as possible. The result of this initiative is a truly impressive park, which celebrated its grand opening in June of 2004, and was built in accordance with the latest scientific requirements, while the care of the bears is entrusted to high-level medical experts from around the world.

Animal welfare of such magnitude is without precedent in Bulgaria. In fact, the very act of pampering these animals, although made defenseless through inhuman cruelty, seem to be quite extravagant, to say the least, to the populace as a whole, bearing in mind that in the midst of a difficult transition to the market economy, living conditions for the majority are still quite below par. We wanted to dispel, for our own sake, the often met misconception that these are ‘Brigitte Bardot Bears', something they are often referred to with ironic overtones, and quite incorrectly so, and see by our own eyes what this famous park was actually like.

We decided to visit the park on November 30^th - Andreev Day, and national bear's day. Getting to the dancing bears' park, as we were soon to discover, is a feat in itself, actually requiring the would-be visitor to negotiate a steep climb high up the mountain. The park is located 180 km from Sofia, 11 km up from the town of Belitsa, at 1,345 m above sea level and finally having reached it, we realize that the facility is of a scale well beyond anything we had expected. We are told by Branimir, the polite park keeper, that the refuge for bears is actually the biggest of its kind in Europe. The park covers an area of 120,000sq. m, divided into seven sectors, and consists of two parts connected by a 30 m long bridge, and linked by 11 passages. Each sector has a separate pool and there are even 12 caves to accommodate the animals. There are also lots of semi-dens, which are made so as to provide an incentive for the bear itself to keep digging and eventually build its own cave.

All in all, there are 16 bears in the park. Except for Dobri, they were all castrated by their ‘masters', but even so, these bears are so permanently traumatized that they wouldn't know how to properly take care of their cubs even if they would have any. Getting closer to two of the bears I see two pairs of tired, sad eyes. The whole experience is bittersweet, causing mixed feelings. Though I appreciate that the bears are well taken care of, I also cannot but feel for them deeply, knowing they have been irreparably hurt and distressed for life. Dobri, for instance, blinded by an accident, keeps standing upright on his hind legs, swinging his upper body back and forth, still slave to the ‘dancing' routine that had been imposed by his captors. A special doctor from Italy has examined him, but there is very little that can be done, even with an eye operation, and so Dobri is going to be put in sector 6 by himself, where he won't feel threatened and scared by the vague silhouettes he does see.

I ask Branimir if the bears socialize, and he points out to me two bears in the middle distance sitting next to each other: Those two over there, named Mariana and Gosho, they are very good friends, and go everywhere together. They are the park's love story... Mariana was born in 1987, and brought from Bourgas, and last year was the only bear to build her own cave for her hibernation sleep. Gosho was at first only social to his old friend Bobi, and they shared their house and food, but Gosho became rather dominant when the other bears come, and he had to be secluded with the female company of Mariana, which I think he rather enjoys! Another story that is also really heart warming and happened just recently involves Bobi and Stephan. Stephan had to stay put in one of the caves, because he had to be given some medicine, and Bobi came and brought him bread, and gave it to him through the bars. In general, most bears here are sociable, meaning they aren't hostile towards each other, and when they don't get along, they just stay out of each other's way.

All bears in the park were ‘bought out' from their former masters, though these were hardly in a position to claim being rightful owners, since the way they actually went about getting the bears in the first place was illegal, to say the least. When bears were still little cubs, about seven months old, just separated from their mothers and beginning to venture on their own, the gypsies would trap them, force rings trough their muzzles, tie chains to the rings, and after a brutal taming and training interval subjected the helpless victims to merciless lifelong exploitation. This prevented the bears from ever developing their natural instincts, and it has been hard work to correct at least some of the damage that has been done.

After the project was initiated, a law was passed in 1999 making it illegal to use an animal for public performances and the intention of making money from it. Apart from promoting animal welfare, in building the Dancing Bears haven, the sponsors' objectives were to provide a venue for the organization of national and international scientific seminars and symposiums, for wildlife field observations and discussions, as well as to create new jobs for the regional economy.

For further information about the Four Paws / Vier Pfoten Foundation, and how you can help, please contact:

Four Paws Foundation Sofia,
5a, Bacho Kiro Str., Floor 3, apartment 13
Tel.: +359 2 9890905
e-mail: office@vier-pfoten.bg
web: http://www.vier-pfoten.bg/