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00:00 right, this viral video from a zoo in China, sparking nationwide debate. Officials from
00:06 the zoo say this bear is not a human dressed in a bear costume, contrary to popular belief
00:13 on the internet. CNN senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson has more from Hong
00:19 Kong. This all started when a viral video put a
00:23 zoo in China on the defensive. There was a lot of skepticism in Chinese social media
00:29 about a bear in the zoo with people questioning whether it was actually a person wearing a
00:35 costume. Environmentalists are hoping that the notoriety that's been generated here will
00:42 attract some attention to the world's smallest bear, which also happens to be on the endangered
00:49 species list. This video put a zoo in China in a bind. When Chinese social media exploded
00:58 with claims this animal was a human in a costume, the zoo decided to grin and bear it, issuing
01:05 a statement in the voice of the animal saying, I'm a sun bear, a message echoed by another
01:11 zoo in the UK. Have you seen that video? Yes, I've seen that video and I am very, very convinced
01:19 100% sure that it is a sun bear. Siu Tay Wong is a biologist and founder of the Bornean
01:29 Sun Bear Conservation Centre. This is a male. We got Joe over here. And I think we can confidently
01:38 say that that's a bear, not a human in a costume. Yes, that is a bear. This forest enclosure
01:46 in Malaysian Borneo shelters 44 rescued sun bears. They are the smallest bear in the world.
01:52 It looks very similar to people when they stand up. Sun bears are also an endangered
01:58 species. Their tropical forest habitat across Southeast Asia is shrinking. What does the
02:05 future look like for the sun bear as a species in the wild right now? If the forest is not
02:11 big enough, if hunting and poaching still continue, the future is very bleak for the
02:17 sun bear because they need large forests in order to survive. Wong says there's an illegal
02:25 market for sun bear claws, teeth and organs used for traditional Asian medicine. Now the
02:33 Chinese viral video is giving the world's smallest bear a moment in the sun. In recent
02:40 days, attendance surged 30 percent at the zoo in Hangzhou. It doesn't look human at
02:46 all when you see it in person, this man says. Something to bear in mind the next time you're
02:52 sent a viral video. The director of the zoo in China, he said earlier this week that they
02:59 got more than 20,000 visitors in a day. And that was a big surge in interest due again
03:05 to the controversy over the bear video. Meanwhile, the director of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation
03:11 Center who I interviewed here, he's also hoping that this will help wake up people and governments
03:17 to this real existential threat facing the sun bear and that people will step in to try
03:24 to help it before its natural habitat in Southeast Asia disappears completely. Ivan Watson, CNN,
03:32 Hong Kong.