The Sloth Bear: Tiger Fighter, Termite Vacuum, and Dancing Bear Victim

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Baloo from The Jungle Book was almost certainly modeled on the sloth bear, and the real animal could hardly be less cuddly. This episode examines a bear that evolved from ancestral brown bears into a specialist eater of ants and termites. It has no upper front teeth, a lower lip that stretches over its nose, nostrils it can close at will, and 10 centimeter claws for ripping open mounds. It blows the dust away, seals its nose, and sucks insects through the gap in its teeth with a sound that carries up to 180 meters.

That feeding style leaves it exposed to Bengal tigers, and its blunt digging claws make it too slow a climber to escape. So the sloth bear stands, flashes the white mark on its chest, and fights. The same reflex makes it one of the most aggressive bears toward people across India and Sri Lanka, even though it never hunts humans for food. The episode then turns to the Kalandar dancing bear trade, a cruelty dating to the 13th century that outlasted a 1972 ban and ended only when rescuers addressed the poverty behind it.

• Mothers carry cubs on their backs, even mid fight, the only bear species known to do so regularly. In a documented 2011 case one female fought off two adult tigers in succession.
• A study in the Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan found that seeds passed through a sloth bear germinate faster, which also helps spread the invasive shrub Lantana camara.
• Sows regurgitate jackfruit, wood apples, and honeycomb into a hardened yellow mass called bear's bread to feed their young.
• British officer Watts Jones survived a mauling and compared the bear chewing his thigh to a tooth pulled under laughing gas. The sloth bear of Mysore killed 12 people.
• Wildlife SOS gave Kalandar families seed money, auto rickshaws, sewing machines, and schooling. Around 2009 the last dancing bear was surrendered.