Famous circus bears

[brotherbear]

I am interrested and wondering if within the many years of circus acts, where bears are popular attractions, were there any bears whose names became known? Any popular individual circus bears that can be rediscovered?

[grrraaahhh]

Circus and bear related material is an obvious topic of interest (that's why the section was created given the history and all) but in all honesty this is a subject I have not had the time to devote serious energy nor resources. What I do have also needs to be organized and that's something that has just started (see mixed animal acts, etc). If there are visitors out there versed in this subject please feel free to join and contribute. A forum like this given its scope of study and limited manpower welcomes outside help. Brotherbear, I think there is more bear-circus related material found in Europe (see relating Google results) and I hope (plans are) to see this section along with other sections populate with good information in due time.

[warsaw]

Dec 7, 2011 7:14:47 GMT -9 brotherbear said:

I am interrested and wondering if within the many years of circus acts, where bears are popular attractions, were there any bears whose names became known? Any popular individual circus bears that can be rediscovered?

The other (sad) side of the coin.
"...The marquee attractions of Victorian circuses, felines commanded the lion's share of top-quality food. The menu du jour of Alexander Fairgrieve's famous traveling menagerie offers some sense of the pecking order among the various animals. Elephants had to content themselves with "hay, cabbages, bread and boiled rice, sweetened with sugar" while the big cats feasted on "shins, hearts, and heads of bullocks." So much meat did the lions and tigers of the great circuses consume, in fact, that their fellow carnivores the bears were forced to await the onset of "very cold weather" before they were similarly provisioned. Until such time, they subsisted on bread, sopped biscuits, and boiled rice.

To be an ursine understudy to feline stars was a sad fate, indeed. Should you wish to express dietary soliditary with the dancing bears of Victorian circuses, this recipe for boiled rice with cheese, which appears in The Helping Hand Cook Book (1912), will have you looking forward to winter's chill..."

www.theausteritykitchen.com/2011/09/circus-animals-nutrition.html

"...Biologists say circus handlers fed the bears dog chow, white bread and lettuce. They believe the bears received fish once a week. A normal diet would be much higher in fat and protein, consisting mainly of fish and meat. The circus is now under investigation, a case which could eventually result in large fines and possible jail time..."

abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129983&page=1
Trucked around Australia during the blistering hot summer of 1987 was a troupe of Siberian brown bears, owned by one of the 70 units of the Moscow State Circus. Their star turn in the ring saw them walk a tightrope suspended 6 metres above the ground at an angle of 45 degrees. The once proud animals, ranging in age from 2 to 10 years, were dressed in sailor suits and from the neck of one of the youngest bears swung a outsized baby's dummy. Following this colourful spectacle, the animals were returned to their "living quarters" - cages just one metre square. Few members of any circus audience will care to realise that performing animals such as these spend much of their entire lives cooped-up in containers or crates in which they are scarcely able to turn. In the Australian heat wave, the Russian bears were understandably reluctant to return to their containers, but by all accounts their protests were met only with contempt and harsh treatment by their handlers. Only demonstrations by animal welfare groups in Sydney and Melbourne eventually forced the Circus to rehouse the bears in larger cages. Said Wayne Stevens, a spokesman for the promoters, Michael Edgley International: "Public opinion seems to be changing and I dare say we have to be adaptable enough to change with it when it is required." Even that grudging change however was only temporary: the Russians have traditionally used such minuscule cages ever since the days of Peter the Great. In August 1988, the Toronto Humane Society gave another unit of the Moscow State Circus 48 hours to find bigger cages for its 12 performing bears or face criminal charges. The bears, declared the Society, were being "psychologically tortured" by their confinement. Revealing once again the hidden sordidness of the rose-tinted illusion, the 15-city tour through the USA and Canada, with 200 scheduled performances, was sponsored by 'SNUGGLE', a fabric conditioner produced by Lever Brothers Corporation, their endearing marketing symbol being a cuddly teddy bear. These animals "do the tricks out of love and not out of fright," asserted the bears' trainer. Yet it is reported that in Las Vagas two members of the audience accidentally witnessed an incident behind stage in which one disobedient animal was struck with what appeared to be a steel rod. Nevertheless, the Russian bear tamers did find some friends amongst American zoologists. While admitting that he had witnessed stereotyped pacing and cage-gnawing behaviour in the bears, the curator of Animals at San Diego Zoo insisted that "it provides a form of regular exercise."

"Elephants, apes and bears - they're the greatest problems for the circus," says Fred Kurt. "I would say that they should never be allowed to travel with them any more. Often in the menagerie you can't even see the apes - they're hiding in the back of the wagon or under the straw. It's the same for the bears in the Russian and East European circuses - they're hidden away in boxes - boxes that are so small that the bears can't even turn around. Most are kept permanently under drugs."
www.iridescent-publishing.com/rtm/ch2p4.htm