Europe Great Britain Bear-baiting was very popular from the 12th until the 19th century. From the 16th century, many bears were maintained for baiting. In its best-known form, arenas for this purpose were called bear-gardens, consisting of a circular high fenced area, the "
pit", and raised seating for spectators. A post would be set in the ground towards the edge of the pit and the bear chained to it, either by the leg or neck. Several well-trained fighting or baiting dogs, usually
Old English Bulldogs, would then be set on it, being replaced as they got tired or were wounded or killed. In some cases the bear was let loose, allowing it to chase after animals or people. For a long time, the main bear-garden in London was the
Paris Garden, a section of the
Bankside lying to the west of
The Clink, at
Southwark.
Henry VIII was a fan and had a bear pit constructed at his
Palace of Whitehall.
Elizabeth I was also fond of the entertainment; it featured regularly in her tours. When an attempt was made to ban bear-baiting on Sundays, she
overruled Parliament.
Robert Laneham's letter describes the spectacle presented by
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester at
Kenilworth Castle in 1575: of a bear-baiting Variations involved other animals being baited, especially bulls.
Bull-baiting was a contest which was similar to bear baiting in which the bull was chained to a stake by one hind leg or by the neck and worried by dogs. The whipping of a blinded bear was another variation of bear-baiting. Also, on one curious occasion, a
pony with an
ape tied to its back was baited; a spectator described that "... with the screaming of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable". Attempts to end the entertainment were first made in the
Kingdom of England by the
Puritans, with little effect. The deaths of several spectators, when a stand collapsed at the Paris Gardens on 12 January 1583, was viewed by early Puritans as a sign of God's anger, though not primarily because of the cruelty but because the bear-baiting was taking place on a Sunday. One bear named
Sackerson was written into the
Shakespearean comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. Baiting was banned by the
Puritans during the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the resultant
Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which ended in 1660. By the late 17th century, "the conscience of cultivated people seems to have been touched" The Act, which also banned (but failed to eradicate)
dog fighting and
cockfighting,
Asia India In India, towards the end of the 19th century,
Gaekwad Sayajirao III of
Baroda arranged a fight between a Barbary lion and Bengal tiger, to determine whether the lion or tiger should be called the "King of the
Cat Family." The victor then had to face a Sierran
Grizzly bear weighing over , after the Gaekwad was told that the cat was not the "King of
Carnivorae."
Pakistan Bear baiting has been occurring in the
Punjab and
Sindh provinces of Pakistan, since 2004. The events are organized predominantly by local gangsters who own the fighting dogs. During the event the bear will be tethered to a rope long in the centre of an arena to prevent escape. Bears'
canine teeth are often removed and their claws may be filed down giving them less advantage over the dogs. Each fight lasts around three minutes. If the dogs pull the bear to the ground they are said to win the fight. Bears usually have to undergo several fights during each day's event. Bears are illegally sourced by
poaching. The capture of bear cubs is prohibited across three provinces of Pakistan the Punjab Wildlife Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management Act (1974); and the Sindh Wildlife Protection Ordinance (1972). Bear baiting was banned in Pakistan by the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (1890). Pakistan's wildlife authorities are working with animal welfare groups to eradicate the events, with some success. The Bioresource Research Centre, a Pakistani wildlife group working to end bear-baiting, uses
Islamic teachings to encourage mosques in areas where baiting occurs, to add an anti-cruelty message to their Friday
Khuṭbah (, Sermon). Depending on the context, though the
Quran does not directly forbid the baiting of
animals, there are restrictions on how people can treat them, and it is outlawed in certain
hadiths.
Kund Park Sanctuary was opened in 2000 by
World Animal Protection to provide a home for bears confiscated by the wildlife authorities and NGOs working to eradicate bear baiting in Pakistan. However, during the
2010 Pakistan floods Kund Park was destroyed and all but three of the 23 bears there died. The survivors were moved to a newly constructed sanctuary in
Balkasar Bear Sanctuary.
North America , 1853
United States As recently as 2010, illegal bear-baiting was practiced publicly in
South Carolina. All such public exhibitions have been shut down as of 2013. In the 19th century and during
Mexican and earlier
Spanish colonial rule, fights had been organized in California, which had a subspecies of
brown bear of its own. In a case of the bear winning, the bear would use its teeth to catch a bull between its horns, on its nose, which would allow the bear to move its head enough to twist its neck, or bite a part of the bull's body, like the
tongue, or use its paws to catch or harm the bull, like in squeezing its neck, or catching its tongue: • According to
Cahuilla people, who claimed to be able to communicate with bears, one of their men attended a fight at a
pueblo in Los Angeles. During the first part of the fight, the bull kept knocking down the bear, before the man whispered to the bear that it had to defend itself, or else it would be killed. Upon that, the bear fought back, and broke the bull's neck.
Mexico Storer and Trevis (1955) mentioned the account of
Albert Evans, who said that he saw an uncommon incident at a
Plaza de Toros in
Veracruz, Mexico, in January 1870. A bear called 'Samson' dug a hole so large that it could hold an elephant, before using its large paws to carry and throw an opposing bull headfirst into the hole, paw-swipe its side till its breath appeared to have been half-knocked out of its body, and then use one paw to hold the bull, and the other to bury it alive. ==Hunting bears with bait==