Video shows circus bear turning on his trainer

[TheKid55]

EDIT: Here's a news article with some background behind the story:

MOSCOW — Russian bears, according to the Kremlin, “aren’t idiots,” so they never attack President Vladimir V. Putin when he takes to the wilderness for some relaxation. But ordinary folk, a Russian bear handler discovered this week when he was mauled during a circus performance, do not share the president’s aura of intimidating invincibility.

The handler, thrown to the ground and jumped on by a 660-pound brown bear, escaped the mauling without serious injury, but only after a colleague kicked the muzzled animal and prodded it with an electric stun gun.

The bear, the star of the Anshlag traveling circus from the city of Voronezh, attacked the trainer on Wednesday after being ordered to push a wheelbarrow across the ring while walking upright, an act billed as “Clubfoot and the Garden Wheelbarrow.”

Children and their parents, seated just yards away without any barriers to protect them from the animal, shrieked in horror as the attack unfolded.

Lyudmila Misnik, the manager of the circus, told the Russian news media Thursday that spectators had provoked the bear by ignoring a request that they turn off the flash before taking pictures with their cellphones.

She said both the trainer and the bear were now doing fine, and offered assurances that “the rest of our program does not pose any danger to spectators.” This, she added, includes “dogs, racc00ns, pythons, monkeys, parrots, as well as trapeze, magic tricks, illusionists, an iron man and clowns.”

Ruslan Solodyuk, the bear’s mauled handler, said the 16-year-old bear, called Yashka, was on his last tour as a performer and was not feeling well at the time of the attack.

He told the Russian site Daily Storm that the bear had never been violent before, and that its aggression Wednesday was a result of old age and joint pains, which get worse in the autumn.

Ignoring complaints from animal rights activists about the use of wild animals in performances, many Russian circuses still feature bears, many of which roam wild in the vast, mostly uninhabited forest areas that cover much of the country. Captured bears, often tethered by chains, regularly appear on the streets of Russian cities as part of advertising campaigns or as gimmick attractions.

They clearly do not like this. Wednesday’s incident in the northwestern region of Karelia, next door to Finland, was just the latest in a series of attacks by angry Russian bears held in captivity. A bear in the Russian Far East earlier this month bit off the leg of a zookeeper, and a circus bear that broke free in the southwestern city of Saratov in June mauled a passer-by on the street.

But bears, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told state television last year, know better than to mess with President Putin, who likes to burnish his macho image by wandering, sometimes shirtless and often with a television camera crew in tow, through remote forests. “Bears aren’t idiots. If they see Putin, they will behave properly,” Mr. Peskov said.

 

[Astroslik]

Did that cacette really have a baby in front of that stage without any barriers?


Russians are fukking crazy

 

[DragonKnight]

I would of jumped in and helped the bear

 

[Rell84shots]

The bear went bear

 

[CreepyMcCreeperson]

Wild animals are not your friends.

 

[Champagne Kudo]

Brother Bear had enough

They was prolly gon make him ride a unicycle next

 

[The Coochie Assassin]

that bear had a enough of the bullshyt....got his as doing kid performances when he wanna be out in the wild in nature I wonder if the bear even had teeth and claws tho

 

[ColdSlither]

The bear went bear

 

[FLATOP]

The craziest part of the video is not the fukking bear tearing chunks out Ruski's neck

Its that the audience really sat there with no bearrier with the face on seeing that big ass wild animal walk out

 

[NinoBrown]

Bear wanted to Unionize, tired of low wages, let management have it.....

 

[TheKid55]

The craziest part of the video is not the fukking bear tearing chunks out Ruski's neck

Nah the craziest part is some dude got to kick a bear and lived to tell the tale

 

[ThrobbingHood]

The only disturbing part was the first 10 seconds. The rest of the video was great.

 

[IrateMastermind]

I don’t know shyt about Bears and even I could tell it was squaring up. The fukk kinda trainer was he

 

[ThrobbingHood]

I heard this was the audition tape for "The Revenant".

 

[Hawaiian Punch]

Harriett done left the night befo'. It's time we go.
Aint no place for bear folk here. Man, promise land callin' me man.
-It's callin' me too.
It's time we go.
-Yeah, I'm wichou!
Hey man, hey damn these chains, man.
Damn you master,
you ain't my master, man!