Bear Hug

It was supposed to be a heartwarming tale of a man who brought an orphaned bear cub home from the forests of eastern India to become part of the family, consoling his small daughter who had just lost her mother (??).

Ram Singh Munda, 35, was arrested and jailed for violating wildlife laws, the bear was sent to a zoo where it has refused to eat, and the abandoned six-year-old daughter has been shipped off to a state-run boarding school.

Munda, a laborer from the indigenous tribes that live in the forests some 125 miles north of the state capital Bhubaneswar, said he found the sloth bear cub last year while gathering firewood.

He brought the bear home, named her Rani, or Queen, and she became a member of the family, which was still struggling to overcome the death of Munda's wife the previous year.

Wildlife officials saw the news stories and arrested Munda last week for breaking the county's wildlife act that prohibits keeping wild animals. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.

"They have sent me to the jail. How will my daughter survive?" Munda told a cable news channel while being taken to prison.

The bear was being kept in an isolated cage at the zoo and was refusing to eat, apparently pining for Munda and his daughter, said the secretary of the Wildlife Society of Orissa.