Ems VN at Moon Bear Rescue Centre, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China With a new year, came a new challenge! After the joys of raising cheetah cubs in the South African sunshine (see PAP1), this year saw me jetting off to chilly China to work with a magnificent species new to my repertoire - the Asiatic black bear or moon bear, so called for the beautiful gold crescents they wear proudly on their chests. They are close relations of the more familiar American black bear and were once widely spread throughout Asia. In the wild they are good climbers and eat everything from fruits and nuts, to insects, birds and bamboo.
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Bears have long held fascination for people. Across the world, in myths and tales, bears have been seen as distant souls, imbued by culture with fierce but kindly natures. It may be their expressive faces, quick intelligence and awesome strength or something else, but bears seem close to our hearts – we see something of ourselves in them. It is with heavy heart that I have to report these beautiful creatures are critically endangered in the wild, although in China alone, thousands live a life of misery and despair, no use to their wild cousins in their fight for survival.
Countless bears can be found in dire conditions, imprisoned in tiny cages where they have neither the room to stand nor turn. They are “farmed” for their bile, a precious commodity in traditional Chinese medicine. Said to help with numerous complaints ranging from liver disease, ophthalmic problems to even cancer, bear bile is procured in a barbaric fashion. The bears are fed through the bars while the painful procedure of bile extraction is carried out each day. Some have permanent catheters, crude metal pipes inserted directly through the abdomen into the gall bladder, from which the liquid is withdrawn; others suffer the ‘free drip method’, supposed permanent holes in the gall bladder stitched open against the body wall, repunctured every day as the body vainly tries to heal over. In these barbaric farms, bears are often declawed or have their teeth smashed to prevent them fighting back during their torture. The saddest part of the nightmare is that the wonder component of bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), is fully replaceable with herbal and synthetic alternatives which are cheaper and more effective, leaving the business of bear
farming obsolete. The scale of production is so huge that supply outstrips demand many times, so bear bile can now be found in products which offer no benefit to health at all such as tea, wine and shampoo, just to get rid of the stockpiles. However, all is not lost in the fight for the moon bear. An incredible, devoted and hard working British woman, Jill Robinson, discovered this infernal practice in 1993 and has made it her life’s work to end bear bile farming in China and other Asian countries. She founded Animals Asia Foundation in 1998 and, working with the Chinese authorities, set up the Moon Bear Rescue Centre near Chengdu, Sichuan Province in China in 2000. Animals Asia signed an historic and ground-breaking agreement with the Chinese Government to work towards an end to bear farming and rescuing these glorious creatures. Although the practice of bear farming is still not illegal, no new licences are being granted, so once a farm is closed down, it’s closed down for good. Progress is slow, but the work goes on and more and more bears are being rescued, nurtured and restored to more normal living, free from abuse.
All of the staff at the centre are dedicated to the plight of the moon bears and I was honoured to join them for three months as a volunteer. Working as a vet nurse, I got hands-on time with these beautiful creatures and my mind was opened and educated to the heinous practice of bile farming. At the centre, the bears are treated gently and kindly, probably for the first time in their lives. Often cruelly handicapped and always mentally traumatised, they slowly recover function and character, and get to be bears again. It was shocking to see their plight but heart-warming to aid their recuperation. However, nothing could have prepared me for the atrocity I was to witness on what was meant to be my last day at the centre.
After months of negotiations, another bile farm had eventually closed and we prepared to receive its 28 bears. The day dragged on as their 12.30pm arrival time slipped by, but finally, at 8pm that evening, the three trucks loaded with bears arrived. As the trucks trundled into view, we all took a deep breath as, excited as we were for their arrival, we did not know what to expect.
HORROR. It took us three and a half hours to unload the trucks, the last one filled with the most badly abused animals I have ever seen. All the bears were totally emaciated, some with revoltingly large hernias over their bile extraction sites, others with huge wounds, abscesses and alopecia, many with broken teeth from years of bar biting, trying in vain to get out of the cages, the pain and suffering written across their brows. One by one, each bear was carefully unloaded from the trucks, and we began to see how they had been squeezed into tiny cages, unable to move. Low groans emanated from bears further back, yet to be seen.
The final blow was on the last truck where we found one of the bears dead on arrival, unable to make the journey to freedom. He had fought the hard fight for too long and had died, yet to hear a gentle word or feel a tender touch. His misery was over, but not without horrific suffering. When removed from his cage, we saw that one hind foot had been severely injured, possibly caught in the bars, a mangled lump of dying tissue and exposed bone. Even worse was the discovery of the front paw that he had chewed through, self-mutilating in a vain attempt to eliminate the pain from the other unattainable source, the hind foot he could not reach due to the confines of his cage.
All of the bears looked terrified but even so, as each was offered juicy fruit on arrival, it was grabbed with very grateful paws and devoured immediately. Twenty-seven live bears were welcomed into our care that night, and for the first time heard a soft word and were shown respect. We carefully transported the bears into their new homes where they would be quarantined for the next few months; we felt a mixture of elation and despair, delighted that these bears were free, disgusted that humans could cause so much suffering for a product we don’t even need. What brings it home to me, is that until recently there was no term in Mandarin for animal welfare. It is a new concept. However, things are changing fast in China and the terrible state of these bears has caused people to sit up and take notice. Seeing the atrocious treatment of the bears in farms alienates people from their products.
More than 7,000 bears are still trapped in farms throughout China. Some have been incarcerated for more than 20 years. There is a proverb in Mandarin which says “To close your eyes will not ease another’s pain”. For me that says it all.
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Ems V The future is brighter for the new bears that have made it. Sadly, so far, 16 of the 28 bears we received have succumbed to their fate. Their suffering is finally over, most euthanised due to being either riddled with liver tumours, the silent killer of the bile trade, or simply unable to make the long, slow journey back from the brink of death; their bodies were just too broken, too weak to recover.
To date, 247 moon bears have been rescued by Animals Asia Foundation, and their lives of misery and despair have come to an end. Now they live in the comfort and security of this fantastic facility where they feel the sun on their backs, share joyous relationships and have full tummies. Watching these bears leading carefree lives, as they wrestle with their friends or explore the new enrichment offered each day is heart-warming. Their raw memories of a painful existence, the years of daily torture, are visibly fading into the distance. It is impossible not to empathise. Pain is pain no matter what the species.
This place fulfils the true meaning of the word sanctuary – a place of refuge and asylum, and we hope for ever more new bears to join their brothers as they are released from their lives of wretchedness. I’m so honoured to have been able to make a small difference in these bears’ lives – the little time I spent in theirs enriching mine forever. Please join me in helping support this wonderful organisation whose devoted staff I salute for their dedication and love. Long nights lie ahead, but I know they will be there, watching over, helping, healing, never complaining.
Please give generously at www.animalsasia.org All donations are welcome.