The Six Degrees of Separation between Me and a Bear Poacher

The coming about of this post is a little strange and nebulous. Below are step-by-step details of how things unfolded and how far I ended -- emotionally -- from where I began.

Last week I blogged on Facebook (FB, from here on out) and my experience with its social networking. I was on FB this weekend for quite some time. At some point, Michael's cousin Kerry was tagged in a photo posted by Laurence Van Atten.

[FB members can tag their friends in photos as another part of social networking. The tagged person's photos appear on their wall, then on the wall of their friends. So, in this case, Laurence posted a photo that contained her friend, Mike's cousin Kerry. It appeared on Kerry's wall, and in turn on mine, since we are friends.]

The photo of Kerry was cute, but what really stood out to me was the name of the poster, Laurence Van Atten. It was familiar. I recognized the name -- but do not know the person -- from some posts on the Yahoo group for Second Chance for Animal Welfare group (for which I used to volunteer). I said to Mike, "Oh, that person is a cat person." I recognized the name because some people posted about Laurence having been away and she later made some posts. I had the impression Laurence was a female, instead of a male as the name implies.

Two days passed. I recalled the photo today, and decided to verify that the Laurence person was part of the Yahoo group. Check, seemed to be the same person. Next I wanted to know who Laurence was. I Googled her. It turns out that Laurence is very big in the Animal Rescue movement. I mean, quite respected and well regarded. She runs the US office of the International Animal Rescue (IAR). She spent 3 months in India at the Agra bear facility working with blind "dancing" sloth bears who were in rehabilitation. She currently organizes lectures and fundraising events for the IAR.

So, what the heck are "dancing" bears, and why do they need to be rescued? I went to Laurence's You Tube page, and the videos I saw there were a huge punch in the stomach. Sloth bears are a breed in India that are quite recognizable and very highly abused. They are stolen -- poached -- from their mothers as young cubs, as early as 6 weeks into their lives. If the mother tries to protect them, they are shot on the spot. The young cubs are castrated live without anesthesia, then jabbed through the nose with a red hot poker. A rope is strung through the hole. Most times the bear's teeth are also clubbed out of their mouths. The roped bears are taken to the streets of India to make money for the impoverished owners by dancing. The owner pulls the rope attached to the bear's nose. It hurts so badly that the bear sways and moves trying to avoid the pain. The animals are chained and starved their entire lives.

Though this cruelty against sloth bears was officially outlawed in the early 1970s, it continued to thrive. Since 2002, IAR and Wildlife SOS have worked together to rescue 500 dancing bears and treat them in their 17 acre sanctuary in Agra. It is believed that only 130 dancing bears remain in captivity. IAR hopes to free them by the end of this year. Ultimately, the goal is to release the bears back into the wild.

I watched several of IAR's videos on Laurence's YouTube site. They chilled me to the bone, and shook me terribly. The terror and misery these animals are subjected to was difficult to watch, and even more difficult to turn away from. I had to watch, because I needed to understand both how this could happen and how these animals have healed.

I was very upset after watching just 3 of the 5 videos. I think it was then that my internal balancing act began. I thought, oh, wow, this is like that 6 degrees of separation thing...
Person A (Me)
  Degree 1 - Me to Michael
  Degree 2 - Michael to Kerry
  Degree 3 - Kerry to Laurence
  Degree 4 - Laurence to IAR
  Degree 5 - IAR to dancing bear
  Degree 6 - Dancing bear to poacher
Person B (Poacher)

The realization, and my internal attempt to rebalance things and regain my perspective worked in a funny way. I have never, ever, played that 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon game. I have never even given the theory (follow the link above to find out why some call it 6 and some call it 7) any thought. Then, it popped into my head out of the blue was I was distressed.

Strange, huh?

If you would like to know more about IAR's involvement with the dancing bears, I recommend watching this short video . It gives a good overview, and is much less upsetting than the more in depth 7-9 minute clips.

Don't forget, as big as our world is, we are only six "steps" away from each person on Earth.