Sun bears are the smallest bear species and face serious welfare challenges from deforestation, illegal trade, and poorly designed captive environments. Understanding their needs informs better care.
Sun bear welfare in captivity requires access to complex physical environments that enable their specialist foraging behaviours. Log climbing, substrate digging, and foraging enrichment are essential for positive welfare. Bears in bare concrete environments show severe stereotypies reflecting profound environmental impoverishment. Bile farming causes extreme chronic suffering - animals are confined with permanent catheter implants draining bile from their gallbladders.