Black bear, shifted to Balkasar sanctuary, becomes mystery
July 12, 2021
ISLAMABAD: The black bear, which was caught from the National Park of the capital and was then sent to Balkasar bear sanctuary in Chakwal, remains to be a mystery as the relevant authorities do not confirm weather it is alive or dead.
After the story of Kavaan, the elephant which was sent to Cambodia for better living, and two lions that were suffocated to death, the idea of shifting that bear from the Islamabad zoo surfaced as an effort to save the zoo animals and put an end to their increasing deaths mainly because of mismanagement and negligence on the part of the respective departments. On the Islamabad High Court (IHC) orders, the black bear was also transported to the sanctuary from the Islamabad zoo for its better look after. A copy of the documents related to its transfer is available with The News.
Islamabad: An orphaned Asian black bear cub recently rescued by animal rights activists from the illegal wildlife traders in Pakistan is now making a quick recovery in Islamabad.
The nearly three-months-old bear named Daboo had a traumatic childhood as the poachers in Neelum Valley of Kashmir killed his mother and abducted the little one. He might have ended up in the transnational wildlife trafficking network or as a dancing bear on the streets had a local animal activist not bought him from the hunter.
“The cub was very young, hardly a month old, and his situation was critical with a severe infection in ears. He was scared, starved and part of his ears cut off,” Anila Umair, the animal rights activist who bought and nursed back the bear to health, told Gulf News. She along with another activist Anna Kazmi got the cub for Rs70,000 (US$440) from a person in contact with the poacher.
Cher felt powerless.
This is not an admission you expect from a woman who has been a superstar since the mid-1960s, with 100 million records sold and 3.9 million Twitter followers.
But when the pop star got involved in helping save an elephant stuck in a zoo in Islamabad under terrible conditions, Cher also had to fight an uncomfortable feeling. I kept saying to all my friends, I m just an entertainer, I m just an entertainer, Cher says now, as the streaming service Paramount+ debuts the documentary
Cher & the Loneliest Elephant (the documentary airs on the Smithsonian Channel on May 19). It s a film about the years-long effort to save Kaavan, a 4-ton, malnourished elephant who had been kept in chains for decades in a run-down area of the Islamabad Zoo in Pakistan before he was moved to a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia last year.
When the pop star got involved in saving an elephant in an Islamabad zoo, detailed in a new documentary, she also had to fight an uncomfortable feeling: "I kept saying, " I m just an entertainer. "