Bears rescued from restaurant cage are released into animal sanctuary

Prizren, Kosovo
1. Mid of veterinarian shooting dart with sedative into bear
2. Wide of bears in cage running
3. Mid of bears
4. Mid of sedated bear
5. Various of veterinarian preparing sedatives
6. Mid of veterinarian shooting dart
7. Close of bear’s paw
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Carsten Hertwig, Four Paws, international animal charity:
“No private person can keep bears and that’s right because a bear is a wild animal. You can’t compare it with a dog or with a cat, yeah? And they need space, they need special keeping and so it’s, it’s let’s say really crazy to say it in an emotional way to keep bear private in such small cages only as an attraction for restaurants.”
9. Close of lock on cage being cut open
10. Mid of Hertwig opening door to cage
11. Top shot of bear lowered onto ground
12. Top shot of bear carried into container
13. Close of bear with breath regulator in nostril
14. Top shot of people protesting removal of bear shouting (Albanian) “Thieves”
15. Close of owners of restaurant arguing with police and objecting to the removal of the bears
16. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Vezir Shehu, owner of the premises:
“When the American peacekeepers gave us the bears we did not know what to do with them for two days, we kept them at home in our living room. They became like family members. Imagine keeping an animal for 10 years that has feelings just like we do in their own way, and now someone has an idea and says I will give you better conditions and keep you.”
17. Wide of men carrying away the containing bearing the bear
Badovac, Kosovo
18. Wide of NATO peacekeepers looking onto bear sanctuary
19. Various of bears in sanctuary
STORYLINE:
Two bears, Ari and Arina were moved to an animal sanctuary in Kosovo on Thursday after a spending a decade living in a 20 metre square (215 square feet) cage to amuse visitors at a restaurant in the country’s west.
Kosovo authorities ordered that the bears be relocated to a wider enclosure set up by the international animal charity group Four Paws.
The organisation was called in to help sedate and transport the bulky animals that have long outgrown the cage they were kept in.
A team of veterinarians prepared the sedative that was injected into the bears, a male and a female, through a dart fired from a tranquiliser gun.
Once sedated the bears were lowered from their concrete enclosure and carried into metal containers.
The two were torn away from their mother by animal traders when they were just a few weeks old, according to Four Paws.
They were then kept at a make-shift zoo together with some 60 other animal species.
Their cage was right above a kennel with dogs and wolves, whose constant howling distressed the two animals, the group said.
“No private person can keep bears and that’s right because a bear is a wild animal you can’t compare it with a dog or with a cat,” said Carsten Hertwig, an animal rights activist with Four Paws.
“And they need space, they need special keeping and so it’s, it’s let’s say really crazy to say it in an emotional way to keep bears privately in such small cages only as an attraction for restaurants,” he added.
The owner of the premises, Vezir Shehu, fiercely objected to the removal of the bears saying he was entitled to keep the animals.
Kosovo does not allow private individuals to keep wild animals.
Police were required to help the rescue and keep away angry family members objecting the removal.
“Imagine keeping an animal for 10 years that has feelings just like we do in their own way, and now someone has an idea and says I will give you better conditions and keep you,” said Shehu.
Shehu runs a family restaurant that also charged 1 euro (1.3 US dollars) for adults and half a euro for children wanting to see the animals.

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