Inside of rusty cages, five moon bears have been held in captivity near Phung Thoung, Vietnam for more than 21 years. All these animals have ever known are their captors jabbing them with needles and extracting their bodily fluids. For more than two decades, the bears have continued to chew on the bars of their cages and rocked themselves back and forth in boredom, fear and frustration.
Every other day, a needle is inserted into their gall bladders and their bile is extracted and sold as a cure for ailments for an eastern Asian custom that claims that bile can cure everything from impotence to headaches.
Video obtained by the field team from Animals Asia shows their repetitive motion.
https://www.facebook.com/AnimalsAsia/videos/510222752738679/
The Vietnam government has promised to close down all bile farms by 2022 and to stop prescribing the products by 2020. South Korea has also taken a stance and has a program sterilizing captive bears to stop the inhumane process. China, however has at least 10,000 bears on 70 farms, and it is all legal. And it is the Asian black bears, popularly known as moon bears because of the white markings on their chests in the shape of the crescent moon, who are the victims of this heinous practice.
On Sunday, Animals Asia were able to rescue five moon bears who have never known freedom, never felt the grass beneath their feet nor a time when they were not stuck with needles. Every experience they have ever had has been one of pure misery.
“Animals Asia’s rescue team has arrived at a bear bile farm in Vietnam to rescue five precious moon bears and close the farm for good. These poor bears have suffered at least 13 years of extreme confinement, and had their bodily fluids extracted with needles for use in traditional medicine,” the organization posted on their social media page.
Vets will first triage which bears are in need of urgent care and take it from there. Some bears may need to be anaesthetised and given immediate health care. All will be freed from their cages and be brought 1,700km to sanctuary.”
Video#2
https://www.facebook.com/AnimalsAsia/videos/323910711687790/
And on Sunday afternoon, rescuers cut open their cages and gave the bears their first taste of kindness. They have been named Star, Kim, Mai, Mekong and LeBon. For these bears, there is hope.
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People in the Far East are so incredibly cruel to animals. WHY WAIT TIL 2020 TO STOP TORTURING BEARS???
Finally, help has arrived for these poor bears!!! How about taking the dogs with you while you’re there? They were probably someone’s next meal.
I do not trust these countries to close down these facilities when they say they will, so one by one these bears must be rescued and released. Hope this happens quickly and the capture and use of these bears needs to be shown to the world what Vietnam is doing to this bears and for the stupid reason they provide. Hope all rescues go well and these first few bears can enjoy their new life.
Awesome! Many animal activist organizations are working HARD on this, including Animals Asia! As the result, many bears are being rescued! Please help spread the word!
Praise God. May they all experience freedom before they die. We must do better for the animals.