WSPA UK - Victor Watkins' blog

Thanks for coming to the live chat!

Hi everyone, just wanted to say thanks for coming to my live chat earlier - it was quite an experience, I haven't done that before!

I know that there are still questions on the blog here that I didn't manage to answer in the chatroom (sorry, we had a few problems with the software!) so as soon as I can, I will answer those next week.

In the meantime I wish you all a good weekend and leave with you with a photo of two of the first bears to come to the sanctuary, Lydia and Christi.

Join me in a Live Web chat later today Friday 5 December at 3.30pm to 4.30pm (GMT)

Find out more about bears on the Animal Planet website

I just would like to remind you that today from 3.30pm you have got the chance to ask me your questions about the sanctuary and the bear issues in Romania.

If you would like to know anything, from what Miro likes to eat to who designed the sanctuary, just ask away and I'll do my best to answer your questions.

It’s very easy to join the chat, just click on the photo of me to the right hand side of this page (underneath 'Ask Victor') at 3.30pm today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Victor

Ever had a question you wanted to ask me about the bear sanctuary?

Chat with me, on Friday 5th December at 3.30pm after the final episode of Bear Sanctuary. My live web chat will run from 3.30pm to 4.30pm tomorrow afternoon.

I’ll be taking questions on the sanctuary and bear issues in Romania. You can ask me about the habits and habitats of the sanctuary residents and wild bears found in the Romanian forests. Or maybe you might want to know more about what it was like to film the series, or a particular bear that you’ve seen on the blog or in the Animal Planet series.

If you want to get ahead of the pack, you can post your questions before the web chat starts. Just add a comment to this blog entry and I’ll post them up tomorrow with a reply.

It’s very easy to join the chat, just click on the photo of me to the right hand side of this page (underneath 'Ask Victor') at 3.30pm tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks and see you tomorrow!

Victor

 

Victor's preview - episode 7 (the last one!)

It’s a big day for the Sanctuary’s best known resident – Max.

For years, Max was kept chained to a railing near a restaurant for tourists to take photographs. Max cannot be out there in the forest enclosures with the rest of the bears because he is blind. A crack ophthalmology veterinary team from the UK have been flown out by WSPA to see if they can help. Their challenge is to get Max out under the sky in a natural forest environment and make sure that he is healthy enough to be let out of quarantine.

If you can't wait until tonight to see what happens to Max, then you can view a news story from the WSPA UK website here

Like Max, the sanctuary has had to overcome considerable challenges.  Its mission has always been to free all the captive bears in Romania. And, in just over a year, already more than half the caged bears in the country are free in the forest enclosures.  It’s an enormous achievement that WSPA and I, and all of the sanctuary staff are very proud of.

A bit of Friday fluffiness for you...

Cubs are helpless to feed themselves and defenceless when very young, just as Rudi was when we first brought him into the sanctuary.

They have to be fed a milk substitute as they can’t eat solid food until they are six months old and the only way to feed a cub of this age is by hand feeding.

 
When a cub gets to six months, they are weaned off milk and human contact is phased out. Often with rescued animals (not just bears) a sanctuary is a haven which gives them the chance to live an almost normal life and should be a vast improvement on where they were previously.

However, wild animals ultimately belong in the wild and phasing out human contact is a vital part of this. At six months, Rudi needs to start learning how to act like a bear and that will mean eating food on his own, for a start!

    

Victor's preview - episodes 5 & 6

Bear Sanctuary airs on Thursday nights on the Animal Planet channel.
Find Animal Planet on SKY: 525, Virgin: 215, Tiscali: 107

Episode 5:
The Bear Sanctuary team goes behind the fence and among the bears (!) to install extra safety measures. The local authorities have demanded that we install these because of concern over wild bear attacks. Sanctuary boss Christina heads to the capital to try to persuade the Romanian Government that it’s safe to release more bears into the forest enclosures. 

Winter arrives early and it looks like the rescue bears will have to hibernate in the quarantine area rather than under the trees of the forest enclosure…

Episode 6:
Winter is over and the Romanian Government has given permission to start moving bears out of quarantine. The sanctuary team release the bears from the quarantine area into the leafy new enclosures. Martinico’s first taste of the outside world gives him a bit of a shock!

Meanwhile Rudi, a four-month old cub must be cared for. He was brought into the Sanctuary during the winter after being found alone and hungry. Now he is drinking 12 bottles of milk a day!

For your viewing pleasure!

Hi all! Glad you're enjoying my blog and for those of you who are able to watch the show on Animal Planet, I'm pleased that you are getting a good feel for the work we do at the sanctuary.

I wanted to thank you all for your generous comments - they haven't gone unnoticed. I know that I have a few questions on the same subject (like bear farming), so I will put up a post to try and answer all those comments in one go so everyone can see the info.

In the meantime, I thought I'd give you this fun fact to chew over...

The bears eat two and a half tonnes of food each week! While they can and do forage for food in the forest – staff continue to supplement their diet as the bears have been used to being fed in captivity.

             

Victor's preview - episodes 3 & 4

Bear Sanctuary airs on Thursday nights on the Animal Planet channel.
Find Animal Planet on SKY: 525, Virgin: 215, Tiscali: 107

Episode 3 preview:
The big male bear Martinico has recovered from his operation and is all set to be released. But the Bear Sanctuary team has trouble persuading him to join the other bears living in the forest enclosure. Meanwhile, team member Marianna heads to a monastery to try and persuade the monks to allow their captive bear to be freed. Back at the Sanctuary, an unrelated wild bear attack nearby could put all the sanctuary’s hard work in jeopardy.

Episode 4 preview:
The Bear Sanctuary team travel to a monastery to free a captive bear. But will the monks let it go?  At the sanctuary, work on a second large enclosure to house more freed bears is well underway. But the authorities have frozen all bear movements because of wild bear attacks in the neighborhood. Elsewhere, the castration of the newly rescued monastery bear creates a media frenzy.

The sanctuary's oldest resident...

Earlier this year, when the sanctuary staff and I went to Buhusi Zoo to rescue Benny and Ala (the bears you saw featured in episode one last week) we also saw an old Asiatic Black bear called Ursula, in a  barren and tiny cage. Asiatic black bears are also known as Himalayan bears, Tibetan bears, or Moon bears. They are called this because of the white crescent moon on their chest.
 Click here to find out more about Asiatic Black Bears

           

Ursula had spent all 26 years of her life in this 3 metre square cage and we all wanted to get her out and into a better environment. The problem for us though, is that she is a different species of bear to all the other bears at the sanctuary, which are brown bears.
Click here to find out more about European Brown Bears

Different species of bear can't live together. They have very different needs and can fight, so the race was on for us to find a small enclosure that was suitable for an elderly blind bear with cataracts (that's right, Ursula is also blind). We had to find just the right home for her before we could arrange to go back and free her. Buhusi Zoo is about 200km north of the sanctuary and it was hard for us to leave her behind.

We moved Ursula into a smaller enclosure that would normally be used for a cub, but as she is blind she needs less space - she wouldn't be able to cope with more. Most of the rescued bears have never come into contact with earth, grass, trees or water before and Ursula was no exception.

Now at 27 years old, Ursula's life has finally taken a turn for the better. She's really taken to her new enclosure and now she knows the layout, she's adapted well! Because of her advanced age, we decided that it would be too risky to operate on her cataracts - it could cause potentially fatal heart and respiratory problems - but this hasn't held her back. It's great to see her doing so well.

         

My random facts of the day!

 3000 metal posts and 1.5km of fencing were used in each enclosure.

 

Although the bears have plenty of room to roam about, I've found that their curious nature means that they often come to the fence perimeter to see who’s there and what’s going on!



150 trucks of gravel were used in each enclosure.

Bears need different textures – grass, gravel and dirt are what real bears are
used to in the wild.