

A man in Yunnan recently discovered that he’d been raising two Asian black bears for the past two years under the impression that they were dogs. Asian black bears, mind, are listed as a class II protected species and are most certainly not dogs.



The man, Wang Kaiyu, owns a banana farm in Jinchang Town, near the boarder of Vietnam, China News reports. Two years ago, a Vietnamese man was passing by the area with two “good looking” pups, and Wang decided to buy them off the man, he told reporters.

For two years, he lovingly raised the “dogs”, bathing and pampering them every day. Wang said the animals were well-behaved but that their appetites were rapidly growing. He recalled a few times when his beloved pets caught and ate chickens on the farm.

As fate would have it, Wang saw a poster about wildlife protection at an exhibition hosted by the forest police, and the bells started ringing. Wang realised he had been accidentally raising two protected species.

After mulling it over, he decided he probably ought to send the bears away to the forest police in Maguan county in the hopes that they could be relocated to an appropriate habitat.



On June 30, the forest police contacted the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre of Yunnan province and the two bears were sent there for protection. A spokesperson from the centre, surnamed Feng, confirmed that the two animals are Asian black bears of different gender, and that they are currently in good health.

By Crystal Lau

[Images via China News]

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