A Home For Franzi, The She-Bear (192/268)

A Home For Franzi, The She-Bear (192/268)

For 18 years brown bear Franzi has been living behind bars on five square metres of concrete floor. Her everyday life consisted of walking in a never-ending circle, interrupted only at feeding time and by showers from a garden hose. A former circus magician had taken the bear to his farm near Opatija in 1991 when the zoo in Zagreb had to evacuate its animals due to the war in Yugoslavia. Croatia is a bear country - even though tourists rarely catch sight of one of the some 400 free-roaming bears here. The locals have become accustomed to seeing shy bears in the forest. They are only rarely a problem as, for example, in autumn when they search for windfall fruit in the villages or try to kill sheep. Franzi, a zoo animal, could not survive in freedom. Yet her owner lacked the money to provide her with a species- appropriate home. Now a German Animal Protection Society has offered her the first place in a newly opened bear sanctuary. Here the old she-bear is taking her first steps over grass, she can bathe in the pond and can sniff at raspberries for the first time.

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