Earlier this year the Grandview shopping mall in Guangzhou, China added Pizza the Polar Bear to its aquarium with the primary purpose of filling the shopper’s unknown need to take selfies with a polar bear.
Animals Asia, the creators of YouTube video below, is responsible for helping bring attention to this issue. The video has already gotten 1,221,430 views since May and I warn you – it very well may induce tears.
Animals Asia is an organization that fights for the proper treatment of animals and they have started an online petition to close the Grandview Aquarium that currently has 575,980 signatures. You can add your voice by clicking on the link.
Stuck inside a small glass enclosure, Pizza is constantly subjected to “traumatizing” tapping against the glass from shoppers trying to get the bear’s attention.
And as you can tell, Pizza isn’t too stoked on this set up:
I never like to run through my definitive rankings of the saddest animals I have ever seen, but these photos move Pizza right to the top of that list.
Last I checked a shopping mall doesn’t quite mimic the natural habitat of a bear. And on top of that shopping malls are one of the worst places on the planet.
Lumped in with theme parks and airports as places where people completely disregard social norms and appropriate behavior. No one looks where they’re going, they walk in unnatural patterns to disrupt everyone around them, they are chock-full of screaming small children and parents who most definitely do not care.
The average mall in your town is bad enough, but Grandview is a next level hellhole.
First of all, in what universe is it necessary to have an aquarium inside a shopping center? Also in no way is a polar bear a fish, a small detail, but an annoying one nonetheless. Figure it out, China.
This entire situation has earned Pizza the title of ”The World’s Saddest Polar Bear,” one part of that is that he lives in a glass shoebox and another is that he’s forced to watch his fellow inmates die on a regular basis.
The first review for the mall on Trip Advisor points out the presence of dead fish floating around the displays in the midsts of their 4 circle (?) review. C’mon son, dead wildlife cannot garner anything above a 2 star, despite the “super” fast-food selection.
Grandview seems unaffected by the negative press and those in charge haven’t made any attempts to rectify the situation. But, in light of the wide press that the situation has received, Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, England has offered to take Pizza on.
Yorkshire has an environment designed specifically for polar bears and not one designed to be a photo booth for little monsters (with undoubtedly very sticky hands).
In addition to having appropriate facilities, Yorkshire is also home to four other polar bears and I think right now there’s nothing Pizza needs more (besides getting out of jail) than some homies.
Also, who knows Pizza’s soulmate could be hanging out in England right now just waiting to help shake the “Saddest Polar Bear in the World” title.
I think it’s time to let Pizza get his/hers (shockingly hard to find out the gender and Pizza is a very ambiguous name, probably because it’s not a name at all) and start living a little bit.
So, if you have a soul go to the Animals Asia page and sign the petition (linked earlier in the article) and do your part.
#FreePizza (the bear, not the food, I’m not running for a middle school class presidency).