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The twilight world of the Moon bears
HIGH PEAK veterinary nurse Hayley Walters has described the horrors facing bears "farmed" in China for their bile.
She has spent three years caring for Moon bears rescued after having tubes inserted in their abdomens to harvest the chemical – valued in traditional Chinese medicine, even though it can be replaced by using herbs instead.
Hayley has been involved in five rescue operations, including the very traumatic rescue of 28 bears last year.
Her latest rescue with the charity Animals Asia Foundation involved 13 Asiatic black bears, known as moon bears because of the golden crescent on their chests. The latest rescue brings the total number of bears rescued by the Hong Kong charity to 260.
The bears were confiscated from a farmer in China's Sichuan province and arrived at Animals Asia's Moon Bear Rescue Centre in Chengdu stacked on the back of a truck, still in their farm cages. The centre's vet team, including Hayley, had to get to work immediately, prioritising those most in need of emergency medical treatment.
She said: "I am always so excited when new bears are about to arrive and this rescue was no different. Thirteen brave, fortunate little souls, scared and tortured, were on their way to us and their lives were about to get immeasurably better forever."
Malnourished and clearly distressed, some of the bears rocked from side to side in agitation while others cowered in terror. The farmers claim that a method of bile extraction – involving the creation of a permanent hole in the abdomen – is painless for the bears and that the industry, therefore, is now "humane".
But Animals Asia Founder and CEO Jill Robinson MBE said: "This so-called 'humane' method involves a hole being brutally cut into the bear's abdomen.
"The farmer re-opens the wound each time he extracts bile by poking a tube into the hole, which is naturally trying to heal. Inevitably, the wound becomes horribly infected, causing all sorts of other medical problems."
Hayley has also been to the Animals Asia sanctuary in Vietnam to help in the hand-rearing of three tiny bear cubs. In May last year she also helped with the emergency relief work for humans and animals after the Sichuan earthquake.Terrible screams of dogs waiting for death
Animals Asia Foundation is also funding the rescue of 149 dogs from an illegal trader in China's Sichuan province. The dogs, crammed together in tiny cages, had been bound for a meat market in the southern city of Guangzhou, China's dog eating capital.
The dogs were confiscated from a trading station by the local Animal Husbandry Bureau after it was discovered the trader was operating without a licence.
Animals Asia CEO Jill Robinson said: " We heard terrible screams coming from some of the cages, where terrified dogs were biting each other."
For more information about the work of Animals Asia please visit www.animalsasia.org
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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