After footage emerged in September of a hopelessly depressed polar bear confined inside a tiny enclosure at a Chinese mall animal rights groups have been trying to lobby officials to improve Pizza’s sad plight.
Pizza, dubbed the “world’s saddest” polar bear, has earned the support of more than 1 million people who have signed a Humane Society International petition for the closure of the Chinese mall, which also has exhibits featuring beluga whales, walruses and arctic foxes.
VIDEO: The world’s saddest bear
Now the Grandview Mall Aquarium, in the city of Guangzhou, has announced on the social media platform Weibo that Pizza will be temporarily reunited with his parents at an ocean park in the north-eastern city of Tianjin while the shopping centre undergoes a refurbishment.
According to a report in The New York Times “the upgrade includes doubling the size of Pizza’s living area.”
Pizza inside his cramped enclosure in a mall in China.
But wildlife experts are encouraging the mall to make the three-year-old bear’s outdoor move to a proper enclosure permanent.
Peter Li, a campaigner at Humane Society International, said in a statement that putting Pizza back inside a glass cage where he is harassed daily by passers-by for selfies would be “cruel and heartless”.
“Pizza the polar bear has endured a life of deprivation and suffering in his small, artificial glass-fronted room at the shopping mall, so the news that he’s getting out at last makes me very happy and relieved for him,” Li said.
“But we implore the mall to make this a permanent move for Pizza and to not condemn him to return. At last he will feel the sun on his fur, sniff fresh air and see the sky above him in the company of his mum and dad.”
The only interaction he gets: Everyday the glass is banged on as Pizza is harassed for selfies.
Earlier this year animal welfare group Animals Asia has announced that upon hearing of Pizza a Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, England, had made a public offer to give him a new home but the invitation was reportedly declined by Chinese authorities. The Grandview’s general manager was also reported by AFP news agency as stating that there is “no need for foreign organisations to get involved”.
Pizza has been living in the mall since January. All hope for his situation is almost entirely left up to activism as there are currently no animal welfare laws in China.
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