The only ambulance in Bulgaria used for aiding bears in emergency situations was stolen from a parking lot in the Mladost 2 Quarter in Sofia Friday night.

The ambulance belongs to the Four Paws Foundation, which runs the Belitsa sanctuary in the Rila Mountain, where the so called dancing bears have found their home.

These are bears that had been captured by certain Roma families in Bulgaria, and trained to "dance" and perform other tricks in the streets of towns and villages around the country usually under bad treatment and severe conditions.

The Four Paws Foundation has managed to buy out the dancing bears from their owners and to create for them the Belitsa Park. The stolen bear ambulance is important for the activities of the Foundation in Bulgaria.

"We were expecting to receive an international license for the ambulance so that we could use it to save four dancing bears in Serbia, and to transport lions from closing zoos in Romania for the Lionsrock Park, that Four Paws recently opened in South Africa. Now this theft is really ruining our plans", said Vasil Madolev who is in charge of the Belitsa Dancing Bears Park.

Madolev added he could not why someone would want to steal the large, slow, and conspicuous bear ambulance. He did not exclude the possibility about involvement of persons trying to prevent the Four Paws Foundation from carrying out its initiatives.