Endangered bear guards mansion

Endangered bear guards mansion

BOGOR, West Java (JP): A man who claims to be a former guard
of the late Gen. Soedirman, who created the Army, keeps an
endangered sun bear to guard his mansion.

R.M. Suwarno Purwosaputro, 72, said Saturday he had official
clearance to keep the Helarctos malayanus bear which he obtained
from a zoo two years ago.

"We have it to guard our house because it has sharp instincts.
It will shriek any time it sees a suspicious stranger," he said.

The bear occupies a two-meter-long, 1.5-meter-wide and 1.5-
meter-high cage at the front gate of the mansion's grounds where
it is exposed to pollution from heavy traffic on Jl. Pajajaran,
Bogor.

Surwono's son-in-law, Lukman said the bear was fed properly
and given a regular health check.

The animal was served papaya, bread, milk and honey at fixed
times every day, he said. It will refuse food offered by a
stranger.

Soewarno is known locally as a breeder of endangered Sumatran
tigers and, at one time, jaguars. On his 0.5 hectare property in
Ceger, on the northern outskirts of Bogor, he has two female
Sumatran tigers, four horses and several birds.

The bear used to be kept on the property but was taken to the
mansion's grounds after it became ill. Suwarno said he would
return the bear to the property as soon as he got a male one to
breed with it.

He said he had got a permit to breed the animals from the
directorate general of nature conservation in 1991.

Sarwono claimed he obtained the tigers from a zoo but declined
to say if he had paid for them.

"I once imported a jaguar and successfully bred it. I was then
a supplier of jaguars to several zoos," he said. (24/pan)