27 Bears free from bear bile farm
Free the Bears have achieved a tremendous thing for bears this week. It was all hands – or paws – on deck to rescue 27 – yes, twenty seven – bears from an illegal bear bile farm in Laos.
This was no small undertaking. They had to go in a rescue all 27 moon bears, and then build more forest bear houses at their sanctuary. These bears will have a wonderful life, and be free of cages and pain and suffering now.
Free the Bears’ partners at the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment had asked the charity to help rescue these bears. Free the Bears think the bears have been at the farm for at least two years – they taken from the wild as cubs before that. Worse, many of the cages were empty, presumably waiting for new arrivals from the wild.
Bear bile farming involves extracting the bear’s bile – all for traditional medicine. You can find out about it here. The 27 malnourished bears Free the Bears have just rescued were only given water once a day. The bears are going to need to be cared for life, since they have all endured trauma.
Three trucks set out to rescue the bears, who were being kept in tiny metal cages. There was a vet team, too. One of the first tasks was to work out how to get the bears out of their cages which were off the ground. There were two bears a cage, with a division between them so that they couldn’t touch each other. And as the video shows, bears love to touch each other. So being in these awful cages means they couldn’t behave as bears do.
And as well as hitting the road to rescue the bears, Free the Bears’ team in Laos had to prepare for their arrival. It was all systems go, round the clock, for the sanctuary needed to fit 27 more bears…
With the last bear on board the trucks, there was a journey of several hundred kilometres back to the sanctuary. This took about 16+ hours, and it involved winding mountain passes on unfinished roads. On arrival, the bears go through quarantine and get health checked. And they had a good meal, too. You can see one of the male bears really enjoying the pool he had, too!
CEO Matt Hunt says they’ve never done anything on this scale before – you can imagine just getting news of the farm and the need to help. Twenty-seven bears – what a mammoth undertaking, and that commitment has just begun! And these bears are going to need lots of care and looking after going forward, as they stay at the sanctuary for life, probably for about 30 years.
Congratulations to everyone involved and thank you for all you're doing for these beautiful bears.
Free the Bears has supporters from around the world – I’m one of them, I’m a Bear Carer – would you please be able to help and join me caring for the bears as well? There are all sorts of ways to help!
Image at the top of this blog is thanks to Hennie Stander on Unsplash. Thank you, Hennie!
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