Bear necessity

The Bear Moon Rescue Centre in Tam Dao National Park was built in response to the vile and rampant bear bile industry in Vietnam.

VnnNews – The Bear Moon Rescue Centre in Tam Dao National Park was built in response to the vile and rampant bear bile industry in Vietnam. 

Maggie Q plays with bears in Vietnam

 
Tragically, some East Asian people believe bear bile is a cure-all tonic. As a result, in Vietnam today scores of illegal farms are turning a healthy profit through the exploitation of bears that are caged and ‘milked’ for their bile. When a bear is caged in such a farm, the bile is extracted through a catheter, which is pushed through an open hole in the bear’s abdomen into his gall bladder.

It is an inhumane and insidious practice that has animal rights groups and conservationists incensed. But such the allure of bear bile (not only in Vietnam but in Korea and China where Vietnamese bear bile is smuggled), this is also an industry that will not disappear overnight.

In 2005, after six years of lobbying by AnimalsAsia and a number of other international and local non-government organisations, the Vietnamese authorities promised to stamp out bear bile farming. In the end of 2005, AnimalsAsia signed an agreement with the Vietnamese authorities to rescue 200 bears from farms around Hanoi and also to work with the government to bring an end to the practice here. Subsequently, Moon Bear Rescue Centre was built in Tam Dao National Park, 70 kilometres north of Hanoi, as a sanctuary for rescued bears.

“Rescuing bears is difficult work in Vietnam. All we do here is aim to protect wild bears from hunters or bear bile farms and try to give them a safe home,” said Tuan Bendixsen, director of AnimalsAsia Foundation in Vietnam, the owner of the bear rescue centre in Tam Dao.

To date, 48 sun and moon bears have been rescued and brought to the centre. All of the bears had been previously trapped on bile farms throughout the country. The owners of bile farms keep the bears restrained with ropes and drugged. The bears will be repeatedly jabbed with four-inch needles until the gall bladder is found and sucked dry.

The animals are inevitably worn down by this experience. Physically they are shadows of their former selves. The rescued bears at the centre had lost all instinct for survival. They cannot even climb or run. “Basically they are disabled,” said Tuan.

The rescue centre does its best to revive the animals with a diet of nutritious food and medical treatment, including surgery to remove damaged gall bladders.

Not all bears can be saved but with some tender and loving care, nearly all the bears will be able to put the horrors of the farms behind them at Bear Moon Rescue Centre. After a bear’s health improves, the bear will move to a protected outside area.

“Here, we teach bears how to walk, run, swim, climb and interact with other rescued bears,” Tuan said. To encourage the survival instinct of bears, the centre’s staff makes games that force bears to find food and water. For example, they put termites into a bamboo culinder and give it to bears. The bears have to find out how to take the termite out of the bamboo culinder.

The ongoing rehabilitation of the bears involves months of physiotherapy with fruit treats encouraging the animals to stretch and climb to strengthen wasted muscles and build confidence. As the rescued bears can never be dropped into a wild environment, the Tam Dao Moon Bear Rescue Centre will continue to expand.

Currently it can hold up to 100 bears in dens and large cages and features a quarantine block and surgical facilities. Under the second phase of development, now underway, more dens, semi-natural outside enclosures and rehabilitation areas will be built for the bears.

AnimalsAsia Foundation expects the centre will eventually be home to 200 bears. However, Tuan points out that this is a very small number if compared to the amount of bears currently caged in bile farms nationwide. While bear farming has been illegal in Vietnam since 1992, the practice is still widespread and it’s estimated around 4,000 bears remain trapped on bile farms throughout the country.

Bears are still stolen as cubs or caught in brutal leg-hold traps and sold to the bile farms. They are also caught in the wild in neighbouring countries such as Laos and smuggled into Vietnam.

The rescue centre can not save all the bears from the shameful treatment of the bile farms, but Tuan understands what he and his colleagues are doing at the centre is contributing to protect a wild animal, one which is endangered by the greed and appetite of others.

“What we want is for the government to impose tougher measures to prevent illegal bear bile farms as well as protect remaining wild bears,” he

Source: Time-out

Tags: Bear Bile, Bear Rescue Centre, Bile Farms, In Tam Dao, Rescue Centre, Rescued Bears, Tam Dao, The Bear, The Bears, The Centre, Physics games

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