X Factor stars get the bear facts
May 4, 2010
X Factor finalist and World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) supporter Jamie Archer took time out from the Cardiff leg of the X Factor tour to visit a local primary school to see what the Year 5 pupils have learnt about bears, since they started using the charity’s school pack.
The musician has been a supporter of the international animal charity for over a decade and took X Factor tour mate Danyl Johnson with him to Bryn Celyn Primary School, in Pentwyn, Cardiff, to drop in on the unsuspecting class and present them with a signed WSPA teddy bear.
Long time WSPA supporter
Jamie remembers seeing a campaign advert from WSPA around 12 years ago and felt moved to become a regular supporter, saying: “I started supporting WSPA when I was a teenager after seeing their campaign to free dancing bears in Greece and Turkey. It means a lot to be able to talk with school kids like the ones we met today and know that they also want to do their bit to try and protect bears and other animals from suffering unnecessary pain. It gives me hope that charities like WSPA can work with today’s children to protect the animals of the future.”
In the nineties, the brutal practice of "dancing bears" saw cubs stolen from the forest and trained to dance on their hind paws, using extremely cruel methods.
After a long battle, the charity was able to end the practice in the late nineties and have since turned its focus to India where there are still an estimated 50 bears living out their days, dragged from village to village ‘dancing’ for audiences.
Bears of the world school pack
When Jamie heard about WSPA’s ‘Bears of the World’ school pack, he decided to try and find time while on tour to stop in at a school that had been using the pack, to see how it is helping children learn about bears and the threats they can face.
Year 5 teacher, Gaye Nicholas says: “We’ve been doing some work on endangered species and the WSPA school pack fits in well. We’ve just had ‘bear week’ and the children wrote some poems about how people can help the bears. The class were really excited – they knew that they had a famous visitor coming to talk to them about their work, but we’ve been keeping their identity secret. When they saw Jamie and Danyl they went crazy!”
Danyl said: “Jamie and I were talking to the class about how it horrible it would be if the children’s pets had to go through the same things that some captive bears suffer. Like most kids their age, these children haven’t seen a bear in the flesh. But after learning about some of the cruel things that can happen to performing bears – like having their teeth and claws pulled out – it’s clear that they recognise animal cruelty when they see it.”
Jamie added: “We got to hear some of the poems the children had written about the threats that wild bears face from man – everything from poaching to be captured and made to dance or fight for ‘entertainment’. They were fantastic and really showed that the kids understood that animals can feel pain just like you and I.”