People believe this sun bear is really a person in a costume—zoo rejects wild rumors

Imagine going to the zoo and seeing cool animals, like lions, elephants, and bears. Now, imagine one of those bears looking like a person dressed in a bear costume!

At a zoo in China, a sun bear stood up on its back legs, and people thought it looked so strange that they wondered if it was really a human pretending to be a bear. A video of the bear became super popular worldwide, and everyone started talking about it.

The bear at the Hangzhou Zoo in Eastern China was captured in a video that lots of people saw on the internet. It looked so different from what people expect a bear to look like that some even thought it wasn’t a real bear! But it’s just a special kind of bear called a sun bear, and sometimes they do things that might look a little funny to us.

So, in the video, the sun bear stands up really straight, and its loose skin makes it look even more like a person in a bear costume. This made people wonder if it’s even possible for a zoo to have a human pretend to be a bear. Especially when some people pay a lot of money to dress up like different animals, like dogs!

But the zoo said this isn’t true. They told everyone that the sun bear, whose name is Angela, is just a normal sun bear, not a human in disguise. Even though she might look a bit different, she’s still just a bear doing bear things!

The zoo pointed out that people might be confused about the sun bear. This bear is the smallest kind of bear, so people might not know much about it. The zoo’s perspective is that this confusion is probably why people are doubting.

This is a real bear, not a human dressed in costumes! A four-year-old Malayan sun bear named Angela in a Hangzhou zoo went viral on China’s social media as a video showed the world’s smallest bear standing upright and waving to tourists just like a human. pic.twitter.com/Azv2tTVJhv

— Yicai Global 第一财经 (@yicaichina) August 1, 2023

After work one day, the boss of the zoo phoned up and joked, asking if the bear had taken a day off and got a human to do her job. Angela, the bear, had her point of view shared in a statement by the zoo. In the statement, she emphasized that she’s a sun bear, not a black bear or a dog, but a sun bear!

“Let me reiterate again to everyone that I am a sun bear – not a black bear, not a dog – a sun bear!”

The zoo explained that people often think of bears as big and powerful, but not all bears are like that. Malayan sun bears, for example, are the smallest bears in the world. The zoo wanted people to know that not every bear is a giant and scary creature. Malayan bears are actually quite small and not as dangerous as some might think.

Sadly, the Malayan sun bear is in trouble. This kind of bear is in danger because people are cutting down too many trees where they live, and some people are hunting them when they’re not supposed to. In the last thirty years, the number of Malayan sun bears has gone down by 35%. That’s more than one out of every three bears that are no longer around!

A wildlife biologist named Wong Siew Te, who started a place to help sun bears, said that not enough people know about these bears. He thinks they are a forgotten species. He explained to CNN that most bears can stand on their back legs, but sun bears do it for a special reason. They stand up tall to look around and see what’s happening near them. Female sun bears even hold their babies with both hands and walk on their feet, kind of like humans. Wong thinks that’s why people might get confused and think sun bears are like people.

Wong also talked about how sun bears are often “fat and round,” but their skin can become loose if they don’t have enough food. Some people thought the bear might really be a person in a costume, but a person from the zoo said that wasn’t true. They pointed out that a human wouldn’t be able to handle the hot summer weather while wearing a big furry suit.

This whole story about the sun bear has become very popular on the internet and has confused a lot of people. But the important thing to remember is that the sun bear is a type of bear that needs help. It’s in danger, and people should learn more about it and care about what happens to it. So go ahead and tell your friends about this interesting bear!