Asian bear filmed doing 'Kung Fu' moves with stick

Footage has emerged of an Asian black bear allegedly doing 'Kung Fu' style moves with a stick.

By Amy Willis
Published: 6:04PM BST 26 May 2010



The footage, which was uploaded to YouTube a few days ago, shows the bear first playing with the 5ft stick with a paw.

The bear then appears to start twirling the stick rapidly around its head using 'Kung Fu' style moves.

At one point the bear - allegedly named Claude - even throws the stick mid-twirl into the air and catches it.

The three-minute clip of the bear was filmed by Canadian YouTube user alexbuzzkentaroguy at the Asa Zoo in Hiroshima, Japan. He says he then uploaded the clip to YouTube.

Animal behaviour expert Professor Marc Bekoff from the University of Colorado said the footage appears genuine.

He said: "This is an amazing example of animal object control. This goes beyond normal animal usage of complex tools but then again you can train seals to balance balls on their noses and train elephants to paint with their trunks, so why not this.

"I would guess this is the result of extreme training and would find it hard to believe the animal taught itself this spontaneously."

Professor Bekoff added that the bear's 'Kung Fu' moves were not natural and the bear must have been in a situation of extreme boredom.

The Asa Zoo has not yet confirmed if the footage is genuine.

The unedited version of the clip plus a previous edited version have so far gained more than 800,000 hits.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7767375/Asian-bear-filmed-doing-Kung-Fu-moves-with-stick.html