Dan Walker highlights "vile" use of a bear in Russian breakfast show's football predictions

BBC Sports presenter Dan Walker caused a mini-Twitter storm after sharing some disturbing footage from a Russian state-owned TV channel.

The clip showed a muzzled real bear – not a man in a suit – dressed in a football kit and forced to drop a ball in one of two barrels labelled with a country playing an upcoming World Cup match.

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And although many questioned the tone of Walker’s first tweet…

…Walker soon clarified he considered the video was “disgusting” and “vile”.

The footage comes days after PETA spoke out in response to footage believed to show a bear driven around Russian streets, forced to play a vuvuzela – an instrument used at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. “The cruel and degrading sight of a bear being forced to play a musical instrument shouldn’t be what the world associates with Moscow and the World Cup,” said PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement, Brittany Peet, about the video. “PETA is calling for this bear to be confiscated and retired to a reputable sanctuary where he or she would be able to live in peace, not as a prop.”

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