🐻 Angela
Malayan sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) · Hangzhou Zoo, Zhejiang Province, China
Lives in Bear Ridge
Angela is a female Malayan sun bear who was born at a zoo in Anji and moved to Hangzhou Zoo around 2020. On 27 July 2023 a visitor's video of her standing upright on a rock and waving at the crowd was posted to Weibo, and within days a large part of the Chinese and then the global internet had decided she was a person in a bear costume - the loose folds of skin over her hindquarters looked like a badly fitted suit. Hangzhou Zoo issued a denial written in her voice, beginning that she is a sun bear and that people really do not understand her, and a keeper pointed out that no human could survive the summer heat in a fur suit. Visitor numbers jumped to over 20,000 a day.
What they do
Rises onto her hind legs on a rock and stands bolt upright, front paws hanging loose at her sides like arms, then lifts one paw and waves slowly at the crowd.
Stands like a man, is repeatedly accused of being one, and refuses to comment
Lore
- ★The viral clip was posted to Weibo on 27 July 2023; the zoo answered the accusations with a statement written from Angela's own point of view
- ★Visits to Hangzhou Zoo climbed to more than 20,000 a day after the video spread
- ★Sun bears are the smallest bear species - she weighs about 55kg and stands roughly 1.5m tall on her hind legs
- ★Her name comes from Anji, the town where she was born, and she shares an enclosure with a male sun bear called Dalu
Helping the real one
💛 Support Angela via Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC)BSBCC is a sun bear rescue and rehabilitation centre in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, and takes donations and bear adoptions. It has no connection to Angela or to Hangzhou Zoo - the route supports her species, not her. This opens their own official page. Money never touches this site.
Where this comes from
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.