Former screen goddess Brigitte Bardot has asked the Bosnian government to grant her a birthday wish by helping to rescue two endangered bears held in captivity in the Balkan country.
Bardot, who will celebrate her 75th birthday on Monday, wants the bears to be transported to a shelter in Germany.
"We ask for your help to obtain authorisations necessary to transport these bears to a shelter that could accept them," Bardot wrote in a letter to Agriculture Minister Damir Ljubic on Friday.
She said she hoped the minister would mark her birthday by giving her the "gift to take the bears out of their hell to offer them a happy and a worthy life in an adapted environment".
"It is my dearest wish," she stressed.
The local animal protection organisation NOA has offered to organise the animals' transport towards a shelter in Germany, she said.
Bogdana Mijic of NOA told AFP two 18-month-old brown bears are being kept in chains on a private property near the central town of Gornji Vakuf.
The owner runs a restaurant and abuses the animals to attract and entertain guests, she said.
"We filed a request that the two bears be exported. The animals are endangered and there is no adequate or humane place to keep them in Bosnia," Mijic said.
The animals are not being fed properly in order to keep them weak so they do not break their chains.
Local authorities have found six bears kept in similar conditions in Bosnia and ordered they be euthanised, said Mijic.
Bardot retired from movie-making more than 30 years ago and now devotes herself to animal welfare.
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