The Story Of The Moon Bears
Jill Robinson, internationally renowned champion of Asia's Moon Bears tells a tragic tale of pain and abuse. These animals are kept caged for most of their life in inhumane conditions only for the farming of their bile. Through love and education Animals Asia is making a difference by saving these animals one by one and educating the world on the pointlessness and cruelty of this activity. Changes in the attitude of government and cultural will bring change over time. But it is the action of the individual that will be most immediate. http://www.so-u.tv/playVideo.php?id=617
Step 1: Visiting the Bear Farm
This is my first visit to a bear farm. I went down some steps and I found myself in a basement. It was quite dark and as I walked around this room I saw sort of shadows in the cages, and I heard these popping vocalizations. As I walked closer to the cages, the vocalizations became more louder and more frantic and I knew then that I'd learned my first lesson about this species that I knew nothing about at all, and that was the lesson of fear. You know my presence as a human being just meant to them that something horrible was going to happen to their bodies. There was a moment when I obviously stepped back into a cage, I felt something touch my shoulder and there was this female bear with her paws stretched through the bars of the cage and I took it and she didn't tear my arm off my shoulder, she just squeezed my fingers rhythmically. And that moment, I tell you, just in a flash I had this feeling that I would never see her again and indeed I never did. But one look into those brown eyes of hers just told me something, that here was an animal that was so horribly abused and so obviously needed, and it just changed everything for me that day. This bear that I never saw again started the dream of the China bear rescue and she changed the whole direction of my life.
Step 2: Horrendous Conditions
And whizzing on 14 years later, this is bear farming today. As you can see nothing has changed. And despite the protestations and the assurances, actually I have to say of both the farmers and several people in Chinese government, this is the reality of bear farming. These bears are still arriving in these horrendous conditions with their bodies utterly tortured from literally decades of bile extractions on these farms. That's if they get to live for those decades, obviously. And it's when you look into the eyes of these animals, you just want to sink to your knees with shame and say I'm so so sorry for what we've done as a species to your species. And again, the story just never, never, never changes. These bears are arriving with us in these tiny wire cages where they're literally growing into the cage bars. Many of them are blind like this poor bear called Blue Bell, completely blind. They have missing limbs from being caught in the wild, they have these horrible scars over their heads from bashing their heads against the bars of the cage in desperate frustration of being caged for so long and they are out of their minds every single time with fear.
Step 3: Andrew The Bear
This is Andrew with his back towards us, Andrew died February before last. When he arrived with us in 2000 he was the first bear to arrive. He was the most iconic animal you'd ever met, he was beautiful. You can see he is missing his whole front left leg from being caught in the wild in a leg hold trap. This was how he arrived, in one of these horrible crushed cages. Generally wild bears are much more aggressive than captive bred bears but Andrew just proved, you know, the difference. He proved how individual these animals are and as a wild caught bear he arrived not aggressive at all. He just lay on his back playing with stray pieces of wire and someone commented, it was as if he came home.
Step 4: Liver Tumor
When a bear stayed out under the stars we'd say, "Hey it's only Andrew, leave him out there, he'll come back in his own good time." And there came a day when Andrew didn't come back, he began to stay out more and more and more. He was clearly sickening from something and we decided to bring him in. The night before we had him down for surgery and I went into have a strawberry yogurt and a blueberry muffin, and I've never been able to look at a blueberry muffin from Starbucks again since. Because at one point when I was feeding him Andrew just stopped eating and he just looked at me and gave a very low and a very forceful woof. And that was so totally out of character, he had never done that before. And I knew then from that second that I'd never see Andrew alive again. And indeed I never did. In fact when our vets went into his abdomen the next morning they found a seven and a half kilogram liver tumor in his body. And Andrew was bleeding to death and there was nothing that we could do but to euthanize him on the surgery table.
Step 5: The Reality Of Bear Farming
That is the legacy of bear farming today. It is one of the main things that is killing these bears on the farms, we know it. It is one of the main things that is killing our bears in our sanctuary. And again, you know I just wanted to make clear that when Andrew was being euthanized, before we actually put the injection in we invited everybody to come to the hospital and it was just wonderful. You know people just snaked around outside the surgery and outside the building.
Step 6: Synthetic and Herbal Alternatives
This is what we're talking about; we're talking about bile that is extracted from the gallbladder of those unfortunate bears, this practice, obviously of Chinese medicine. What I am so severely concerned about is that bears are used today. There is absolutely no need for this practice to be occurring. Thankfully for the bears both Chinese and Western doctors agree that bear bile can easily and cheaply be replaced. There are an abundance of synthetic alternatives out there that cost pennies and there are 54 different herbal alternatives in Chinese medicine too.
Step 7: China Bear Rescue
Thank you for your time, in this China bear rescue, in this Vietnam bear rescue, your part in ending an industry that should never have begun, and I promise you that we will look after these bears for life. After all they've experienced they deserve nothing less. With your help we can do something about bears like this that were crushed flat to the bars of the cage for 15 years. We know that for certain about this bear who turned out to be our beloved Jasper here that you can see there. So if they can come through we can surely get behind them and end an industry for all those animals that are waiting, all those Jaspers that need our help, that are entirely not well on the farms today. So on behalf of Andrew, thank you so much, bears that we will never never forget. Bears like Truth who will never die in vain and bears like Jasper who will always wake up with the sun on their backs and without fear in their hearts thanks to you. Thank you very much.
