New video of ‘bear’ waving in Chinese zoo fuels claims it’s human in disguise
ew footage has emerged of a bear at a zoo in jap China waving to guests – amid hypothesis it’s in actual fact a human in disguise.
Hangzhou Zoo was forced to deny the rumours on social media on Monday after footage of the animal went viral and social media customers had been fast to level out its human traits.
In posts on its official WeChat account and in interviews with native media, the zoo mentioned the bear, named Angela, is “definitely not a human”.
Another viral clip has since emerged displaying the bear standing on its two legs because it waved to guests.
People at the moment are flocking to the zoo, in jap China’s Zhejiang province, to catch a glimpse of Angela.
Regarding hypothesis she is a human in costume, a member of employees at Hangzhou Zoo reportedly instructed native media: “Our zoo is government-run, so that kind of situation would not happen.
“The temperature in the summer is nearly 40 degrees, if you put on a fur suit, you certainly couldn’t last more than a few minutes without lying down.”
Malayan solar bears are smaller than different bears and look totally different however are the actual factor, Hangzhou Zoo mentioned on Monday.
Visitor numbers on the zoo have gone up by 30 p.c to round 20,000 since footage of Angela started trending on Chinese social media over the weekend, Zhejiang province-based Chao News reported.
“After seeing this bear standing up on the internet, I wanted to see how it looks in real life, so I came here,” mentioned one man, who mentioned he had solely half-believed the video he noticed on-line, Chao news reported.
“After we saw the video on the Internet, we specially took the high-speed train from Suzhou to come over to see the bear,” one other customer, Qian Ming, instructed a Hangzhou TV station. “We travelled overnight last night to get here. The bears are so cute.”
In the broadly shared video posted final Thursday, the Sun bear will be seen standing on its hind legs and stretching its neck out because it faces guests watching from exterior its enclosure, earlier than sitting again down.
“If this is fake it deserves an Oscar for special effects,” mentioned one consumer on the Weibo microblog platform.
Animal rights group PETA mentioned that this incident exhibits how all zoo animals, together with this bear, ought to be moved to sanctuaries and wildlife reserves that “prioritise the well-being of animals”.
“These highly intelligent and social beings deserve to live freely and thrive in their natural environment, not used as mere spectacles for human entertainment,” Jason Baker, PETA Asia Vice President, mentioned in a press release on Tuesday.