With only a few weeks old, Dori, a brown bear cub (Ursus arctos), is believed to have been captured in the forests of Albania and illegally put up for sale on social media. Wildlife traffickers were asking five thousand euros.
Dori, at the time a small male, was confiscated on March 21 this year after a report from an Albanian animal rights activist who happened to come across the advertisement, and handed over to the Four Paws bear sanctuary, 20 kilometres from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. In a Facebook post, the organization notes that the cub arrived “without any documentation and outside the proper legal channels.”
The sanctuary immediately contacted Kosovar and Albanian authorities to determine how to proceed. Subsequently, Four Paws contacted the Arcturos bear rehabilitation and reintroduction centre in Greece, in the hope that the cub could be welcomed and, later, returned to Nature. However, the organization states in a press release that “due to various factors, rehabilitation is no longer an option, and he must remain under human care.”
According to the information released, the person who was selling Dori online claimed to have found him alone in the Librazhd area, east of Tirana, the capital of Albania, and assumed that he was an orphan cub.
Thus, Dori now resides permanently at the Four Paws bear sanctuary in Pristina, where he is cared for by teams specialized in bear care.
“The story of Dori is truly moving and a stark reminder of the suffering caused by wildlife trafficking,” says Patricia Tiplea, of the Four Paws Rescue Planning Department, cited in a note.
“Having been orphaned at only a few weeks old, he was forever deprived of growing up with his mother and of a life in the wild,” she notes. “Since arriving at the Pristina Bear Sanctuary in March, Dori has proven to be a playful young bear who loves to climb trees.”
Dori is now between nine and ten months old and, by five months of age, weighed 22 kilograms. Hard-boiled eggs, apples and carrots are his favorite foods, the organization reveals.
Four Paws urges people not to intervene in similar cases, but to immediately contact local authorities and wildlife experts “to handle the situation in a safe and legal way in the best interest of the animal.”
