We are NOT the official Animals Asia but we are the official Lancashire branch in the UK to help this charity, please click the banner below to visit the Animals Asia official site to see all the fantastic work they are doing. "Vietnam: Moon Bear Rescue Centre, Tam Dao National Par Welcome to the family David Thursday, October 23, 2008, 10:13 AM Who could resist him? Laid out on our surgery table today in Vietnam with our brilliant vet team momentarily forgetting their serious faces and clucking around him like foster mums, David slept in total oblivion, breathing rhythmically and strongly as he received his first health-check ever. Brown-black fur as soft as velvet and the sweetest sun-shaped crescent, which has earned him and his kin the name of sun bear, David is perfection itself. Slightly on the chubby side as a result of a poor diet on the farm from where he originated, and weighing in at a chunky 64kgs David could be mistaken for a largish rottweiler – with wrinkles! Moon bear he is not. Originally hailing from Nghe An Province, where he was confiscated from a bear farm along with one other sun bear and two moon bears between May and July this year, David was then transferred to a cage in a national park until our Vietnam Director Tuan was called and asked if we could help. No question there - and after hours of a long and bumpy ride home, David was finally with the team at the sanctuary, safe and sound at last. Vet Jen estimated him to be around 3.5 to 4.5 years of age - and in good health apart from a decayed pre-molar which needed to be removed and longish claws that needed clipping. A routine castration (of course we love cubs, but with so many bears needing our help and our resources limited, it wouldn't be fair to encourage breeding) and David was soon dozing on banana leaves and sleeping off the anaesthetic. Just a couple of hours later he was happily munching on a frozen icepop David is named after David Kerr – a journalist, supporter of Animals Asia and long-time resident of Lamma Island, Hong Kong – who died last year. On David’s death, his sister Barbara made a very generous donation to our bear rescue project, so we offered to name one of our new arrivals “David”. When this latest group of bears arrived, we knew we had our “David” – this lovely sun bear had the same gentle nature and laid-back personality of his namesake. Time will tell if he also shares his namesake’s quirky sense of humour and laconic wit! ************************************************************ Three more safe from Vietnam bile trade Monday, June 2, 2008, 12:16 AM Some really good news at last! Three new utterly beautiful bears have arrived at our Vietnam sanctuary thanks to the prompt action of the Vietnamese authorities. This brings to 12 the total number of bears taken in to our new sanctuary. About two weeks ago, we were informed that Quang Ninh Forest Protection Department (FPD) and the Quang Ninh Border Patrol Police had caught a Chinese national trying to cross the border from Vietnam into China with three bears in crush cages. The offender had no permit or papers of any kind to show the legality of the bears. The bears were confiscated and taken back to the Quang Ninh FPD compound in Ha Long Bay – about 150km from the border and about 400km from our sanctuary. The bears were transferred into three bigger cages until we could come and rescue them. The Chinese man has refused to cooperate with the investigation and claimed he was moving the bears on behalf of someone else. At this stage the FPD does not know which farm the bears are from. They were in reasonable condition when they were rescued – I guess the offender would have bought “good condition” bears for the long trip to China. No one knows where the bears were heading, but being quite young (2-3 years old?) they were most probably heading for a bear farm in China. The bears (two males and one female) weigh about 100kg each. Our Vietnam Director, Tuan Bendixsen, went with the rescue team to pick up the bears on Monday. Tuan said the rescue went very well, although the trip from Quang Ninh FPD compound to Tam Dao took almost six hours because the temperature had risen to above 35 degrees C and the FPD had given us a fully enclosed truck because they were worried that the offender/bear farm owners could try to get at the bears to remove evidence before the impending court case The FPD even assigned two officers to accompany the bears back to Tam Dao. Because of the heat, we bought 10 1-metre slabs of ice in Ha Long Bay to keep the bears cool and we stopped every hour to hose them down and to give them watermelon. While we don’t know for sure that these bears have been abused as “bile machines”, as Tuan said: “I can’t imagine bears on a bear farm not being farmed at all. The buyer might have asked for bile extraction to check the quality of the bile when they knocked the bears out to put in the crush cages?” These gorgeous new residents – whom we’ve nicknamed Chica (pictured in the truck with ice), Amigo (above) and Rumbles (below with Jen) until they get their official names from their sponsors – are now settling in at our rescue centre. They all have intact canines and paws, a welcome change from the state of many of the news arrivals to our China sanctuary. They are already enjoying their snacks of fresh fruit and nuts, their fresh green browse for making nests – and the adoring attention of the staff. ************************************************************ See ITN video link: http://itn.co.uk/videos/00d21500c7ab9772d6b1a9a78eed129e.html See guardian.co.uk write up: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/oct/11/animalwelfare.world See csmonitor.com link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0409/p04s02-woap.html (Mama and Molly 2 happy residents) Animals Asia has been working in Vietnam on the issue of bear farming for 8 long years. Since 1992 it has been illegal to poach, exploit or utilise Sun Bears and Asiatic Black Bears under Ministerial Decree 18. However at the time Asiatic Black Bears were listed in Group II of Vietnam’s legislation and a grey area existed which stated that “live animals from the second generation may be used for other purposes”. In September 2002 Asiatic Black Bears were finally elevated to Group IB, which in effect closed the loophole and made bear farming an illegal practice. However as of 2005, the Vietnamese Government has made a firm commitment to phase out bear farming and on 16 November 2005, Animals Asia signed a formal Agreement to rescue 200 farmed bears in Hanoi! www.animalsasia.org