Angela, Hangzhou Zoo’s Sun Bear, Denies She is a Costumed Human
Hangzhou Zoo in eastern China felt the need to deny allegations, made on social media, that their Malayan sun bears are in fact humans wearing bear costumes.
Responding to a viral video of a sun bear on its hind legs, the loose skin on its butt bunching up, looking for all the world like a pair of ill-fitted slacks, the zoo said people just “don't understand” the species. The video and subsequent commentary were posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
The zoo, assuming the perspective of a sun bear named Angela in a playful reply to the social media hubbub, emphasized that sun bears are “petite, the smallest bear in the world,” and that “not all bears are behemoths and danger personified.”
These bears are only about four feet tall when they stand on their hind legs, about half the height of, say, a North American grizzly. But these little guys do get “personified” when they stand up, because they naturally assume a rather human posture. Fueling speculation that the bears are really people in disguise is the fact that the zoo’s website, which has extensive profiles of all its animals, has none of the Malayan sun bear. Suspicious!
NBC News got to the bottom of the controversy by consulting Wong Siew Te, a wildlife biologist and the founder of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Malaysia, who declared the animal in the video is “a sun bear for sure.” The sun bear expert, who has been researching the animal for about 25 years, confirmed that, yes, “they stand like humans and walk like humans.”
Wong thinks the brouhaha is an educational moment. “Sun bears are the least known bears in the world,” he said. “I believe the incident could call people’s attention on how sun bears may look like humans and hopefully could [let people know] that they are endangered species because of human activities,” like large-scale deforestation and hunting.
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Photo credit: Hangzhou Zo
