What to Know
- Pizza the polar bear has been kept in a shopping mall in China, where visitors pose by his enclosure for selfies
- Photos and video apparently show the polar bear suffering from declining mental health and increased agitation
- The mall said the move is only temporary, but animal advocates worldwide are calling for a permanent relocation
Life appears to be looking up for "the world's saddest polar bear," who has lived in a small aquarium in a shopping mall in China for nearly a year at least, subject to knocks on its glass enclosure by selfie-snapping visitors.
The plight of Pizza the polar bear became known worldwide after photos and videos of the magnificent creature apparently looking despondent in its cramped quarters at the Grandview Shopping Centre in Guangzhou went viral.
A petition launched in March calling for the animal's removal from the shopping mall garnered a million signatures, and it was handed over to Chinese authorities last month, according to published reports.
Dave Neale, animal welfare director for the Hong Kong-based nonprofit Animals Asia, which filed the initial petition, told Mashable in July "there is no excuse for any animal to be trapped this way," and urged Chinese authorities to put it back in its native environment.
Last month, new video released by Humane Society International in partnership with VShine, a Chinese Group, indicated Pizza's mental state was declining and that the bear was growing increasingly frustrated by its surroundings.
And last week, the bear was moved to an ocean park in northern China. According to multiple reports, and a translated statement the mall put out on Chinese social media, the relocation is only temporary to allow mall officials to renovate the bruin's enclosure.
Local
“Our video clearly showed that Pizza was suffering, and we warned the mall that soon his decline would be so apparent that it would be difficult to have him on public display," Humane Society International's Peter Li, a China policy specialist, said in a statement. "Without a doubt, the mall has had to act due to tremendous pressure from Chinese and international campaigners, but I fear that Pizza’s poor health is part of the reason too."
Li joined the chorus of calls urging the shopping center to make the move permanent.
"At last he will feel the sun on his fur, sniff fresh air and see the sky above him," Li said, adding, "No amount of renovation could ever make a shopping mall a suitable place for this animal, and to send him back now would be cruel and heartless."
It wasn't clear exactly how long the animal had been kept at the mall.
