Dancing Bear Park in Belitsa: A Paradise for Bears

Belitsa (Bulgarian: Белица) is a town in southwestern Bulgaria, located in the Belitsa Municipality of the province of Blagoevgrad. When you arrived to town, you are welcomed by a Belitsa post with a cute bear statue.

Of course, I was curious about what this bear statue means. Did it mean that Belitsa has many bears inside? It did not take long to learn that this does not mean that there are many bears in Belitsa. The most important thing of Belitsa is that it has Bears Park in it.

At the first glance, it is possible to think that this Bear Park is like a zoo park, but it is misleading. This park does not undertake a mission which restricts the freedom of animals like zoo parks. On the contrary, it has a mission that guarantees the freedom of bears.

When I was in the park, I learned that I could attend a guided tour by authorized people. I attended this guided tour to learn about the past, present and future of these bears and at the same time to fully learn the mission of the park.

Let me inform you what I have learned!

The first question which comes to mind is what the features of the bears which are located in Dancing Bears Park are? These bears were dancing bears before being rescued. Dancing bears are trained on hot iron plates as cubs. They are separated from their mothers too early. Subsequently, they are mutilated without anaesthesia with rings pierced through their noses. Their noses are the most sensitive parts of their bodies. They are fed on rubbish and sugar. Bears cannot hear well. The only sound a bear can dance to is a trigger effect. This trigger effect is a dance of fear.

In 1999, Brigitte Bardot Foundation and Four Paws associated their efforts to save more than 20 beras.At the beginning, the legal situation did not offer much room for intervention and the Roma families insisted on continuing this medieval tradition.

When it was clear that a last solution for the dancing bears should be realized on Bulgarian land, an available habitat for the bears was found near the Belitsa.

In 2000, the first three bears were recued: Kalina, Mariana and Stefan. Soon more bears were to follow them.

Thanks to the mutual efforts of Four Paws and Brigitte Bardot Foundation, Bulgarian Parliament adopted on 10 July 2002 a law banning the hunt, trade and show before a paying audience of the brown bear. Following this law, it become easy to make the park larger.

In 2007, the last three dancing bears were transferred to the Dancing Bears Park which are Mima, Svetla and Misho. In 2009, the last three dancing bears from Republic of Serbia were also located at the park.

The bears in Bulgaria will not dance on hot surface anymore. They will not wear rings on their noses either. “The Dancing Bears Rehabilitation Park” in Belitsa could be their new home now.

In the Dancing Bear Park, a return to natural intincts is encouraged on all levels. The feeding procudures are like the daily lives of animals in the wild. For example, the professional staff disperse the food throughout the enclosures so that the bears need to spend a substantial amount of their time to find the food. Almost all saved dancing bears have started to hibernate in the winter and many of them have dug their own dens.

One of the main policies of the sanctuary is: no breeding. It would not only be hazardous for the bears, who are often too old and medically fragile to give birth without complications, but would also doom the cubs to spend all their life in captivity, as cubs born to animals in captivity could never learn to live independently in the wilderness. It is necessary to underline again that a sanctuary is not a zoo.

The Belitsa Sanctuary /Dancing Bears Park/ is also partly financed by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.

Guiding tour visits are organized every hour between April - May: 10.00 am - 6.00 pm; June - September: 10.00 am - 8.00 pm; October - November: 10.00 am - 4.00 pm; December - March no tours.

If you are close to Belitsa, do not come back without visiting the park!