Nepal's wildlife authority on Tuesday denied media reports that a sloth bear rescued from Siraha district in the southern part of the country few months ago has been receiving ill-treatment at the Central Zoo situated in Lalitpur district of Kathmandu.
"The sloth bear has been shifted to a larger cage a couple of months ago and we are taking every possible care of it," Chiranjibi Prasad Pokharel, director at the Central Zoo, told PTI.
Pokharel said the wildlife experts at the zoo are taking care of the bear.
"The health of the bear is sound... We are providing healthy food such as bread, milk, raw sugar and fruits to the animal every day," he said.
The zoo has four other sloth bears and four Himalayan bears at display to the visitors. However, the rescued bear has been put in a separate cage.
Responding to a question regarding sending the bear to India, he said there was no proof that the bear belongs to the southern neighbour.
"Such type of sloth bear is also found in Nepal," he said. "When the Siraha District Forest office handed the bear to the zoo, it was mentioned that the rescued bear is from Nepal."
"Unless the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation clears, we cannot handover the animal to Indian authorities," he added.
However, a Nepalese journalist of newsportal 'Onlinekhabar' reported that there were earlier precedents that support repatriation of the rescued animals.
"We already have two precedents, hence sending the bear to India should not be an issue, writes Diwakar Pyakurel in Onlinekhabar quoting Niraj Gautam, who was involved in the two earlier cases.
After an Indian bear tamer's story was published in the Kantipur daily six months ago, animal rights activist and chairperson of Sneha's Care Centre Sneha Shrestha reached Siraha and rescued Dhutharu, the one-year-old sloth bear, reported Onlinekhabar.
Dhutharu was handed over to the government with the request that he be transported to a wildlife recovery centre in India as Nepal does not have such a facility. Private organisation like Sneha's Care are not authorised to keep under their care rescued wild animals.
Six months on, the animal is still languishing inside a small cage in Nepal's only zoo in Kathmandu.
Talking to PTI, Shretha said that she has sought permission from the Nepalese authorities to take the bear to the wildlife rehabilitation centre in India but the authorities denied permission citing nationality of the animal.
She is currently preparing documents to prove that the animal belongs to India.
The government officials have dismissed repeated calls by Shrestha and other activists for sending the bear to India.
Sloth bears (Melursus ursinus) are found in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. They are listed as vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's wildlife conservation list.
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