Three Bald Bears Perplex Experts
Written by MrChill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8345550.stm
From the BBC
Bears in a zoo in eastern Germany have lost their fur, but international experts cannot work out why. Three spectacled bears in Leipzig Zoo are in various states of baldness, with the worst being hairless all over. Zoo curator Gerd Noetzhold said he had discovered that zoos throughout Europe and further afield had encountered the same problem, but no-one knew why. One expert suggested it could be caused by climate and the diet of the bears, whose native habitat is South America. The bears come from the Andean mountains of Ecuador, Peru and northern Bolivia.
"This problem with the spectacled bears is not just in Leipzig," Mr Noetzhold told the BBC World Service. "There are other zoos in Europe and overseas having the same problem. And so we've had an international working group of zoo vets looking at this for some time already."
Gerard Baars, director of the International Bear Foundation, said he had never seen such a condition before. "I could hardly believe it is a bear although I have been dealing with bears all my life," he told the BBC's Europe Today programme.
Get these bears to Bosley asap, they're way past Rogaine. Is this the ugliest creature you've ever seen in your life or what? Still you can't help but feel bad for it, it didn't ask for this! I'm sure in his hayday he was a looker, but now climate changes have caused him to have hideous fake-looking, droopy old skin. I'm still not convinced it's a bear - possibly could be a gargoyle - here's a side-by-side view, you be the judge:
