Second post today! Scroll down!
**UPDATE**
Jill has posted another entry on her blog that three moon bears have died. One was euthanized to put him out of his agonies, and another just couldn’t hold on. One bear died before he arrived at the sanctuary and he’s been named “Peace.” Here’s an excerpt from Jill’s blog, written by one of the vets who are frantically trying to save the bears so they can live out their lives happily:
Peace was an Asiatic black bear who died on the truck from the bile farm to the AAF sanctuary. He lay crunched into the tiny coffin cage, his emaciated head propped against one end and his right arm flung through the bars as though in a final plea for someone to end his suffering.
His body was more emaciated than one would believe possible to have still been alive. His eyes were sunken deep into the skull, small and lifeless and jaundiced. The right hind paw was stripped of flesh, revealing the skeleton of toes and the rotten, leathered skin crumpled over the end like a sock trying to come off. Deep gouges into the tissue of his right forepaw suggested that Peace may have tried to chew off his flesh to detract from the agony of his body.
On opening the abdomen, the veterinary team found the liver abused with cancer, the lining of the gall bladder cobbled and angry with polyps, the bile thick from dehydration and starvation, the tissue jaundiced from liver failure, and bile leaking into the abdominal cavity. This bear had suffered unconscionable agonies. His final plea drowned in the rattle of a diesel truck that did not deliver him in time to know the only succor he may have ever received.
This is really good news! After a long, long wait the Chinese are again allowing moon bears to be rescued from the horror and torture of bile farms. I’ve been a monthly support of AAF for nearly two years and I believe in their work wholeheartedly. Here’s a letter sent to AAF supporters today by Jill Robinson, and you can read more at her blog.
Just a quick e-mail to update you on the news that many of you have patiently been waiting for. Madam Xiong (literally Madam “Bear”!) of the Sichuan Forestry Department has kept her promise of closing a farm before the end of March – and, in the final hours of this month, our newly rescued bears are here! At 8 p.m. tonight (Monday, China time), three trucks carrying 28 terrified, emaciated, but soon-to-be-free Moon Bears drove through the gates of our sanctuary in Chengdu, bringing our new family members “home.”
The next few days and weeks are going to be frantically busy as our wonderful team of vets, nurses, bear managers and workers get to grips with pioritizing those bears in most urgent need of medical attention and begin their magic of repairing damaged bodies and minds. As always, this is a time of emotional highs and lows as we cry inside for animals that have spent decades in cages on barbaric farms, but put tears and anger behind as we become the professionals the bears need us to be.
Our first priority has been to ensure the safety of our staff by securing the rusty, dilapidated cages of these tortured, understandably aggressive bears, before offering them simple pleasures which they have never experienced on the farms. Free access to clean water for the first time in their lives, fruit piled high and tasty medicated shakes which will start them on the healing process – preparing for emergency health checks and major surgeries so necessary to get them through. Even straw placed on the roof of their cruel crush cages will see them quickly pulling it through, making nests on unrelenting bars which have hurt and scarred their bone-thin bodies for years.
It is the best and worst of times for everyone here in Chengdu – not least the bears – and, in between this new rescue, we want to thank you for having the faith to stay with us and for now being a profound part of this latest good news. Please come back and visit my blog where you’ll see updates and photos whenever there’s time over this coming week. Take a quick break and visit (www.animalsasia.org/blog/) so that you can join the bears as, together, we start the first tentative steps towards freedom.
Finally, please bear with us (excuse the pun) as we try to balance caring for the bears and keeping you updated. I know you’ll have questions, but we may not be able to respond to you all individually as we start working round the clock at the sanctuary. Please keep checking the blog and I’ll try to answer them as much as possible there.
These bears may not be “smiling” like Jasper and friends just yet – but experience tells us that most will pull through … with a little luck, and time, on their side.
Bear hugs,
Jill
Jill Robinson MBE
Founder & CEO
Animals Asia Foundation, Hong Kong
Jill is planning a USA Roadshow starting next month. Keep checking for updates and be sure to get out and meet Jill and donate to save the moon bears!
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Filed under: animal rights, endangered species, wildlife conservation
