After 210 days of total silence, Chada the Himalayan brown bear has finally rejoined the living. The elderly resident of the White Rock Bear Shelter in Ukraine was filmed taking her first groggy steps out of her hibernation den. The footage, which has since gone viral, captures the “bed head” and shaky balance typical of an animal whose metabolism has been running at a fraction of its normal speed for over half a year.

Sleepy Bear Emerges From Den In Very Relatable Video: ‘Me On A Monday’

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A bear that spent many difficult years touring as part of a circus has become an overnight internet sensation after a video of her waking up for the day went viral.

Chada, a 25-year-old Tien Shan (Himalayan) brown bear, lives at the White Rock Bear Sanctuary near Kyiv in Ukraine. Himalayan brown bears are classified as “critically endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. They have a typical life span of between 20 and 30 years and are mostly found around Central Asia, in an area ranging between northern Afghanistan and China. Males are brown but females like Chad are usually sandy or reddish-brown in color.

Dr. Maryna Shkvyria, Chief Zoologist and project coordinator of the Save Wild organization, which runs the bear shelter, told Newsweek there are “only 300 [Himalayan brown bears] left in the wild” and, if truth be told, Chada is lucky to be alive.

Born into captivity on Christmas Day, 1998 she spent much of her early life touring as part of the Ukrainian national circus.

Chada the Himalyan bear. There are thought to be just over 300 Himalayan bears living in the wild. | White Rock Bear Sanctuary/White Rock Bear Sanctuary

Eventually, she was left to live out her days in a small rusty cage in an industrial suburb of Kyiv. Chada spent seven years there before activists stepped in to help.

She finally arrived at White Rock in July 2019 but years of mistreatment in the circus have taken their toll; Chada has almost no teeth and is virtually blind.

Despite these difficulties, it would seem Chada has not lost her ability to command an audience. Earlier this month, Shkvyria filmed her waking up one morning and uploaded the clip to the White Rock Bear Sanctuary’s social media channels, where it quickly began garnering attention.