Reliant on the generosity of passers-by for his daily diet of junk food, he cuts a lonely and desperate figure. Crowds flock to see Tomi the brown bear in his ‘home’ – a tiny cage next to a run-down restaurant in beautiful mountains 40 miles north of the Albanian capital Tirana. They take videos of him on their smart-phones, pose for selfies, and if feeling kind give him sweets, cake and crisps. His owner occasionally gives him beer to quench his thirst. Tomi’s mood fluctuates. Sometimes, when he can smell food, he cups his paws in a begging motion and gazes hopefully in the direction of the customers. Occasionally he puts his jaws through the iron bars and sticks out his tongue, clinging to the hope that someone might feed him. In other moments, he paces around his cage intensely, and then goes into what appears to be a self-harming spasm – biting his limbs while shaking his head violently. His owner blames the distressing behaviour on ‘boredom’ but insists there is nothing wrong with locking up Tomi for 24 hours a day. An animal welfare expert said it is the result of ‘extremely monotonous and confined living conditions’ which, he added, are ‘unbearable’ for him. Until two years ago, Tomi roamed the mountains, woodland and river across the road from the eatery where he is now a very reluctant tourist attraction. Then the man who runs the restaurant, who refuses to reveal his name, came up with his sickening idea of taking the bear out of his natural habitat – in a bid to boost takings. He said he paid a vet to hunt Tomi down with a tranquiliser gun’. Keeping beautiful animals in cages for years on end without any form of freedom is not how any animal should be treated. This petition aims to force the owner of the restaurant to release him back into the habitat of which he was stolen from so he can continue to live the rest of his life which he has been so cruely stolen from him over the last 2 years!!