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SARSING, Kurdistan Region – A family in a village at the foot of Mount Gara woke up this week to a surprise visitor – a bear in their chicken coop. The bear is one of six domesticated Asiatic brown bears set free two weeks ago on the mountain in Duhok province.
“At around 4 am, we heard a sound. We did not know what it was. My mother woke up at 7 am to a wild bear, noticing that it had eaten chickens, attacking seven to eight of them,” said Bahri Shamal.
The bear also destroyed bee hives in the village, looking for honey.
The six bears had been kept as pets in Basra, Nasiriyah, and Erbil. Their release into the wild was arranged by the Kurdish-American Organization, “to make the area beautiful” and restore the bear population, Blend Brifkani, head of the organization, said at the time.
But it was done without the input of local authorities, according to a mayor.
“This is the second year that an organization has set free wild bears on Mount Gara. A number of villages are located at the foot of the mountain. Releasing these bears in the region has not been coordinated with the local authorities of Chamanke and Sarsing towns, located on either side of Mount Gara. Such animals, we saw how they have inflicted harm on a village, are a danger to the lives of people,” said Sarsing Mayor Nashwan Husni.
The bear was later returned to the wild.
“We had no option other than using tranquillizer darts in order to be able to remove it from there, with no harm to the people,” said Dr. Sulaiman Tamar, head of the Animal Rights Protection Organization.
The release of the bears attracted international media attention and condemnation from wildlife conservation experts who say that re-introduction of captive animals into the wild must follow strict conservation guidelines for both the well-being of the animal and the safety of local populations.
“These captive bears are unfit for release back in the wild, they have little chance of survival,” wrote the Dutch nonprofit organisation Bears in Mind, warning that the bears, accustomed to people, will visit villages to search for food, creating “dangerous situations.”
Video editing and translation by Sarkawt Mohammed
“At around 4 am, we heard a sound. We did not know what it was. My mother woke up at 7 am to a wild bear, noticing that it had eaten chickens, attacking seven to eight of them,” said Bahri Shamal.
The bear also destroyed bee hives in the village, looking for honey.
The six bears had been kept as pets in Basra, Nasiriyah, and Erbil. Their release into the wild was arranged by the Kurdish-American Organization, “to make the area beautiful” and restore the bear population, Blend Brifkani, head of the organization, said at the time.
But it was done without the input of local authorities, according to a mayor.
“This is the second year that an organization has set free wild bears on Mount Gara. A number of villages are located at the foot of the mountain. Releasing these bears in the region has not been coordinated with the local authorities of Chamanke and Sarsing towns, located on either side of Mount Gara. Such animals, we saw how they have inflicted harm on a village, are a danger to the lives of people,” said Sarsing Mayor Nashwan Husni.
The bear was later returned to the wild.
“We had no option other than using tranquillizer darts in order to be able to remove it from there, with no harm to the people,” said Dr. Sulaiman Tamar, head of the Animal Rights Protection Organization.
The release of the bears attracted international media attention and condemnation from wildlife conservation experts who say that re-introduction of captive animals into the wild must follow strict conservation guidelines for both the well-being of the animal and the safety of local populations.
“These captive bears are unfit for release back in the wild, they have little chance of survival,” wrote the Dutch nonprofit organisation Bears in Mind, warning that the bears, accustomed to people, will visit villages to search for food, creating “dangerous situations.”
Video editing and translation by Sarkawt Mohammed
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