From the archives: This story was last updated in August 2019.
Cholita suffered two decades of abuse at the hands of her captors. Today, the 30-year-old spectacled bear luxuriates in the natural habitat she had been missing for so long, and it’s all down to a miraculous, accidental rescue operation.Confined to a cage measuring little more than the length of her own body, Cholita had given up hope that she would ever know a different life.
The sweet, fragile bear’s condition shocked the ADI rescue team. She was “barely recognizable as an endangered spectacled bear,” they said. Cholita had been hideously mistreated.
Wearing the scars of her captivity, both mental and physical, Cholita had lost almost all of her previously thick, black hair from stress. Her eyes were infected, and her toes had been cruelly cut off, leaving blunt, clawless stumps.
Sweet-natured Cholita, one of numerous victims of these slack regulations, immediately warmed to her rescuers. She was quickly moved to a traveling cage for the 28-hour journey to ADI’s headquarters. Her rescuers, determined to help Cholita feel safe and secure, lovingly fed her pieces of banana through the transport cage bars.
“Cholita’s is a very sad story,” ADI’s Tim Phillips added. “She was badly mutilated. She has been alone for years. She really deserves a happy ending.”
Happily, she got one.
Today, Cholita is one of four spectacled bears rescued by ADI and the ecological reserve; seeing the recovering bear relax and recoup in her natural habitat is everything her rescuers wanted and more. “It is an absolute joy to see Cholita, Dominga, Lucho and Sabina enjoying and exploring their forest homes,” Creamer shared.
The latest addition to the group, Dominga, suffered much the same horrors as Cholita before being rescued; hers was a brutal, 14-year ordeal. “Having suffered so much in their former lives,” Creamer told the Express, “our ’real life Paddington bears’ have a new lease of life, surrounded by nature and their own kind.”It is an outcome to be proud of. Watch Cholita’s steps to freedom (and her insatiable love for grapes) for yourself, and spread the amazing word of the ADI to all of the wildlife lovers you know.
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