This Year Was Bad But Just Be Thankful You’re Not A Polar Bear

It seems like no matter how bad we humans make things for ourselves, we are making it even worse for polar bears. The United Nations released new data that suggests 2016 will be the hottest year on record and a new high for the third year in a row. With their habitats rapidly melting, polar bears are suffering extreme population loss as well, and it looks like captivity is no bed of roses either. Yesterday, social media exploded with demands that a Chinese mall return Pizza The Polar Bear to her birthplace.

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Pizza has been living in a shopping mall aquarium in Guangzhou, China, where people have gawked at her sad, desperate behavior and have labeled her “the saddest polar bear in the world.” Given the year polar bears are having, that really says something. But we would be miserable too if we had to live inside a shopping mall. Though the three-year-old bear is currently back in a zoo while the mall undergoes alterations, animals rights activists are arguing that no amount of renovation will make the mall suitable for a wild bear, or pretty much any creature that isn’t a teenager.