WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-27 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
The bear lies on its stomach in a coffin-like metal cage so small that it cannot move. It cannot sit up, turn over or scratch itself, let alone stand. Protruding from its stomach is a catheter that has been crudely inserted into its gall bladder, which is “milked” for its bile, used in traditional Chinese medicine despite the ready availability of cheap herbal and synthetic alternatives.
The bear is an Asiatic Black Bear, or Moon Bear, named for the yellow crescent of fur on its chest. It is endangered and there are only an estimated 16 000 to 25 000 left in the wild.
It has been in the cage for 15 to 20 years.
It is kept hungry and thirsty because then it produces more bile. Its mouth is full of broken teeth from its futile attempts to chew its way out of the cage, which is in a row of other cages with other bears inside them. There are other rows in a cellar where the light of day hardly penetrates.
The painful milking happens twice a day – bears have been seen moaning, banging their heads against their cages and chewing their own paws while it is taking place.
A woman walks into the cellar and, as her eyes adjust to the gloom, gasps in horror while her stomach churns.
The sight before her eyes is almost unbelievable. She later describes what she sees as a torture chamber, a hell hole for animals. She walks past the bear’s cage. A highly intelligent animal, it senses her compassion and stretches a paw through the bars of its cage.
Jill Robinson, who was working for the International Fund for Animal Welfare at the time, reaches out instinctively and holds the bear’s paw. Their eyes lock, the bear’s filled with pain, the woman’s with tears.
It is a moment that will change both their lives.
The woman vows then and there that she will not rest until the bear and the estimated 7 000 others like it in China, and 4 000 in Vietnam, are freed from their torment, and the barbaric practice of bear farming is ended for ever.
That was in 1993 and Robinson has remained true to her word. In July 2000, the organisation she established, the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF), signed a landmark agreement with the Chinese government to rescue 500 bears in Sichuan province, to work towards the future elimination of bear farming in China and to promote the alternatives to bear bile. This historic agreement was the first between the Chinese government and any outside animal welfare organisation.
Since October 2000, more than 40 bile farms have been shut down and more than 200 bears rescued and placed in the Moon Bear Rescue Centre established and run by the AAF in Cheng-du, Sichuan province.
Farmers have been paid to shut down their operations so that they have money to open other businesses or retire.
No more licences to operate bear farms are being issued but cubs are bred on some farms to face a living hell.
“The sanctuary and the accompanying education village (which employ about 150 mostly Chinese staff) are keystones to our work of change through education,” says Robinson. “Our China Bear Rescue is advancing the concept of animal welfare within China on a large scale.”
Another rescue centre has been opened this year by the AAF in Vietnam, and the first 80 of 200 rescued bears will soon be moving in.
Earlier this month, the Chinese sanctuary was in the news worldwide when it received 28 rescued bears. All the bears that arrive there are terrified and ill, but those in the latest intake were in the worst state the sanctuary had seen.
Angela Leary, media manager of the AAF, said this week: “Usually, when a new batch of bears arrives, we expect that one or two might not make it but the shocking condition of this batch is unprecedented.
“Already 11 have died or have had to be put down, because they have liver cancer and other agonising ailments.”
Robinson, who has been awarded an MBE for her ef-forts, says the bears were in “impossibly small cages, all skeletal, wounded in various ways and terrified of what would happen to them next”.
“When new bears arrive at our rescue centre, it is a harrowing time for all,” she says on her website.
“Still in their tiny wire cages, they present the grim reality of bear farming as we see vicious scars from where they have sometimes literally grown into the bars, missing limbs from being trapped in the wild, teeth and claws deliberately cut back to take away their defences, and gaping infected holes in their abdomens.
“They are demented with fear and frighteningly aggressive as they crash their bodies against the sides of the cages and exhibit severe stereotypic behaviour as a result of being ‘cage crazy’.”
They often have crippling illnesses like arthritis, peritonitis, weeping ulcers and ingrown claws. Some have missing limbs and eyes. All are severely ill, many with liver cancer. They usually have to undergo surgery, which can last up to eight hours, and months of physiotherapy to help them learn to stand and walk. Then they slowly learn to play and swim and drink and eat at will and live the normal life that is every animal’s right.
They are the lucky ones.
The level of sustained, extreme cruelty suffered by the bears is not just a concern for people in China. It diminishes people everywhere.
The AAF is becoming known around the world and animal lovers in many countries are trying to do what they can to help. It is funded entirely by people donating large sums or as little as $5 (about R40) to buy a pot of honey.
And in the midst of the terrible cruelty, there is a glimmer of hope that attitudes in China (where many other animals are very harshly treated in zoos and on farms where dogs are bred for food and eaten, as are cats) are changing.
After attending a recent symposium of animal welfare organisations in China, Robinson said: “It showed that there is a groundswell of change in China, with community concern for animals rapidly increasing and authorities becoming more aware of the need for animal welfare.”
Perhaps they will one day manage to end the prolonged agony of the Moon Bears.
To learn more about the bears visit http://www.animalsasia.org where people can donate to the foundation or download petitions and find out how to lobby Chinese embassies around the world.
People can write (politely, as aggressive letters are counter-productive in China) to Madam Yang Baijin, secretary general of the China Wildlife Conservation Association, c/o the AAF head office, Box 374, General Post Office, Hong Kong or e-mail [email protected]