Slightly Graphic video; Animals Asia: Anger and sorrow as 13 more bears die in Halong

 “This is cruel, despicable, illegal & heartbreaking. Caught & imprisoned from cub to adult in tiny rusty cages; their world is one of pain, irritation, infection, teeth pulling & repulsive food; literally going stir crazy!! They simply won’t know what it is like to live as a wild bear should, with fresh air, lush grass & trees etc. They can not be returned to the wild as they simply wouldn’t be able to survive; having been kept a prisoner most of their pitiful lives!. Although the video documentary is 43 minutes long, I urge you to watch it, see how Animal Asia started undercover investigation to save these sentient beings. It is hard to imagine how these beautiful bears can still be bought or caught, entrapped some wear a metal jacket around them, with a tube constantly fixed; to extract bile. But it’s not just bile, parts of the bear can also be acquired; the farmers will make money dead or alive.  Public demand warrants this abuse; even though there are now synthetic bear bile products, there is no need for these bears to live & die in a cage; in constant pain. These bears need to be rescued so please help by signing the petition at the end of this blog & share amongst your social media friends etc.”

29 January 2015

Thirteen more bears have died at Cau Trang Bear Farm in Halong Bay, Vietnam bringing the total death toll since November last year to 18.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION BELOW

It leaves Cau Trang bear bile farm – at the centre of an international campaign demanding permission to rescue the bears – with only nine remaining bears. The campaign had been backed by over 80,000 animal lovers including celebrities such as Ricky Gervais, Dame Judi Dench, Stephen Fry and Olivia Newton-John.

In the two months since Animals Asia inspected three farms in the vicinity of the World Heritage Site, 26 of the 49 moon bears – a protected species – are said to have died leaving just 23 alive in Halong City.

(Some scenes are graphic) Although this video is long, please watch it to understand what happens to these poor bears & how Animal Asia came about to rescue them!

“Published on 13 Sep 2012

Watch the hard-hitting, undercover documentary showing the brutality of the bear bile industry across China, which recently won a top award at the Fifth China Ya’an International Panda, Animals and Nature Film Week. The documentary was made by three independent film-makers who devoted four years to its production, visiting small and large bear bile farms, revealing “legal” farms with conditions that are clearly breaking current regulations for such farms in China.”

Having previously focussed just on Cau Trang Farm, Animals Asia is now pressing the Vietnamese government to allow it to bring all 23 remaining bears in the Halong City area to its Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre in nearby Tam Dao.

The latest news has left Animals Asia staff devastated and angry that bears have been allowed to die when an offer for their rescue remains on the table.

Authorities, concerned that the bears are being slaughtered for parts for use in traditional medicine have also ordered that TV cameras cover their burial – as interest in the case continues to grow in Vietnam.

Animals Asia’s Vietnam Director Tuan Bendixsen said:

“The eyes of the country are now on Quang Ninh province and the relevant authorities to see that right course of action is taken. We cannot be sure of the exact details surrounding the bears’ deaths but we can say the farmer chose to let them die. We offered to treat the animals and the offer was rejected. It was the farmer who took the decision to let the animals die. It was a conscious choice. We can only speculate as to his motives.”

The Central Forest Protection Department (FPD) has informed Animals Asia that it is urgently requesting the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) form an investigation team.

The team, expected to include representatives from Central FPD, CITES and MARD’s Nature Conservation Department, would travel to Quang Ninh province to investigate the exact causes of death, whether the correct procedures were followed to dispose of the bodies and to ascertain how the remaining bears can be saved.

Animals Asia founder and CEO, Jill Robinson MBE, said:

“These deaths are utterly tragic and unnecessary. It’s heart breaking to learn that so many bears have spent years suffering on the farms, and have now needlessly died when there is a sanctuary ready and willing to give them the life they deserve just a few hours down the road.”

“Through the increased local coverage of the deaths of these bears, Vietnam is seeing the reality and brutality of bear bile farming. While their deaths have shone a spotlight on the industry in Vietnam, there was no need for them to die at all.”

“There have been enough delays and we’ve seen what that has achieved. The time has come to act, and act now. We are beseeching the authorities – let us save the remaining Halong Bay bears before it’s too late.”

Nearly 2,000 bears remain in cages in Vietnam being farmed for their bile for use in traditional medicine – despite the practice being made illegal. Bear bile farming technically became illegal in 1992 when Ministry of Forestry approval became necessary to keep bears. In 2002, bears came under CITES group I, making their exploitation strictly illegal. However it wasn’t until 2005 that the first species-specific regulations were enacted.

Animals Asia has rescued over 500 bears from bear bile farming as part of its work to end bear bile farming in China and Vietnam.

HELP US SAVE THE HALONG BAY BEARS

Emaciated, missing limbs, some near blind, others with open wounds, all starving – these are the animal collateral of Vietnam’s cruel bear bile industry.

Help us force the farmer who profited for years from these poor bears to hand them over to Animals Asia for urgent medical care and rehabilitation.

Sign the petition and ask the Vietnamese government to remove the bears from the farm so Animals Asia can give them the care they deserve.

Animals Asia was founded in 1998 and is devoted to ending the barbaric practice of bear bile farming and improving the welfare of animals in China and Vietnam.

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION:- http://halong.animalsasia.org/savehalongbears/

NEWS LINK:- https://www.animalsasia.org/uk/media/news/news-archive/anger-and-sorrow-as-13-more-bears-die-in-halong.html

The ISSUES ABOUT BEAR BILE FARMING

More than 10,000 bears – mainly moon bears, but also sun bears and brown bears – are kept on bile farms in China, and just under 2,000 in Vietnam. The bears are milked regularly for their bile, which is used in traditional medicine.

Bile is extracted using various painful, invasive techniques, all of which cause massive infection in the bears. This cruel practice continues despite the availability of a large number of effective and affordable herbal and synthetic alternatives.

Most farmed bears are kept in tiny cages. In China, the cages are sometimes so small that the bears are unable to turn around or stand on all fours. Some bears are put into cages as cubs and never released. Bears may be kept caged like this for up to 30 years. Most farmed bears are starved, dehydrated and suffer from multiple diseases and malignant tumours that ultimately kill them.

“PLEASE DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO HELP SAVE THE REMAINING BEARS! “

News Link:–https://www.animalsasia.org/uk/our-work/end-bear-bile-farming/

Rhino: No Horn Of Plenty

“This is a long post, but if you are interested in Rhino, this is a must read & well worth the time needed to read it!!”

More rhinos will be killed in the next two years than will be born, so those charged with saving the endangered animal are considering radical and previously unimaginable solutions.

Twenty-four-hour watch: An anti-poaching team guards a de-horned northern white rhinoceros in Kenya in 2011. Photo: Brent Stirton

The battle to save the African rhinoceros has all the ingredients for a Hollywood thriller. There are armed baddies with good guys in hot pursuit. There is a hint of glamour. And the drama is played out against a backdrop of a beautiful, bloodstained landscape.

It is a story that begins, perhaps improbably, in Vietnam soon after the turn of the 21st century. A Vietnamese official of some influence, so the story goes, lets it be known that he, or perhaps it is his wife (for the sake of the story it matters little), has been cured of cancer. The miracle cure? Rhino horn powder.

With disconcerting speed, the story shifts to southern Africa, where a series of gunshots ring out across the African plains. This is followed by the hacking sound of machetes – it takes little time to dehorn a rhino because its horn consists not of bone but of keratin fibres with the density of tightly compressed hair or fingernails.

The getaway begins, armed rangers give chase. Once the horn leaves the flimsy protection of the national park or game reserve, where its former owner lies bleeding to death, it may never be found.

White Rhinoceros with a calf at Lake Nakuru national Park in Kenya. Photo: Martin Harvey/WWF

Its new owners never brought to justice. Sometimes they are caught. Sometimes they get away. Either way, another rhino is dead in a war that the bad guys seem to be winning.

The story shifts again, back to Vietnam where even the prime minister is rumoured to have survived a life-threatening illness after ingesting rhino horn. More than a cure for the country’s rich and powerful, however, rhino horn has by now crossed into the mainstream. Young Vietnamese mothers have taken to keeping at hand a supply of rhino horn to treat high fevers and other childhood ailments.

It is also the drug of choice for minor complaints associated more with the affluent lifestyle to which increasing numbers of Vietnamese have access; rhino horn has become a cure-all pick-me-up, a tonic, an elixir for hangovers.

With this new popularity has come the essential paraphernalia common to lifestyle drugs the world over, including bowls with specially designed serrated edges for grinding rhino horn into powder. In a short space of time, rhino horn has become the latest must-have accessory for the nouveau riche.

The sudden spike in Vietnamese demand, the miraculous fame of a saved official or his wife, and rhino horn’s emergence as a symbol of status all came at a time when legal stockpiles of rhino horn were at an all-time low. Demand and supply. This is the irrefutable law of economics.

Or, as one expert in the illegal trade in rhino horn put it: ”It was a perfect storm of deadly consumption.”

The rhinoceros is one of the oldest creatures on earth, one of just two survivors – the other is the elephant – of the megaherbivores that once counted dinosaurs among their number. Scientists believe rhinos have changed little in 40 million years.

The rhino’s unmistakable echo of the prehistoric and the mystery that surrounds such ancient creatures – this is the animal that Marco Polo mistook for a unicorn, describing it as having the feet of an elephant, the head of a wild boar and hair like a buffalo – have always been its nemesis.

As early as the first century AD, Greek traders travelled to the east, where the rhino horn powder they carried was prized as an aphrodisiac. But the rhino survived and, by the beginning of the 20th century, rhino numbers ran into the hundreds of thousands.

They were certainly plentiful in 1915 when the Roosevelts travelled to Africa to hunt. Kermit, the son, observed a rhinoceros ”standing there in the middle of the African plain, deep in prehistoric thought”, to which Theodore the father is quoted as replying: ”Indeed, the rhinoceros does seem like a survival from the elder world that has vanished.”

The Roosevelts then proceeded to shoot them.

Rhinos are epic creatures, gunmetal grey and the second-largest land animal on earth. Up to five metres long and weighing as much as 2700 kilograms, the white rhino, the largest of all rhino species, can live up to 50 years if left to grow old in the wild. In an example of advanced evolutionary adaptability, the black rhino will happily choose from about 220 plant species, eating more than 70 kilograms of plants a day.

These impressive numbers, combined with some of the rhino’s more limiting characteristics – it has very poor eyesight – have added to the myth that surrounds it.

”A slight movement may bring on a rhino charge,” reported nature writer Peter Matthiessen in the 1960s. ”Its poor vision cannot make out what’s moving and its nerves cannot tolerate suspense.”

Thus it was that the rhinoceros became a permanent member of the ”big five”, the roll-call of the most dangerous animals in Africa as defined by professional hunters.

But respect has always been tinged with derision. ”I do not see how the rhinoceros can be permanently preserved,” Theodore Roosevelt is reported as wondering, ”save in very out-of-the-way places or in regular game reserves … the beast’s stupidity, curiosity and truculence make up a combination of qualities which inevitably tend to ensure its destruction.”

In the 1960s, one eminent scientist described the rhinoceros as ”a very pathetic prehistoric creature, quite unable to adapt itself to modern times. It is our duty to save and preserve this short-tempered, prehistorically stupid but nevertheless so immensely lovable creature.”

Such disparaging remarks aside, they were, of course, right to be worried.

We have been here before when it comes to saving the rhino. In 1960, an estimated 100,000 black rhinos roamed across Africa, absent only from tropical rainforests and the Sahara. By 1981, 15,000 remained. In 1995, there were just 2410 left on the continent. In 2006, the western black rhino was declared extinct.

In Kenya, the numbers of black rhino fell from 20,000 at the beginning of the 1970s to 300 within a decade. This catastrophic fall in rhino numbers was the consequence of a poaching slaughter that consumed the country’s wildlife as lucrative ivory and rhino horn was consumed to meet the growing demand in Asia; rhino horn also made its way to the Arabian Peninsula, where it was used to fashion the handles of traditional Yemeni daggers.

It was in Kenya’s south, in the Tsavo National Park, that the war against rhinos reached its nadir – the park’s rhino population fell from 9000 in 1969 to less than 100 in 1980.

Since then, rhino numbers have rebounded thanks to a combination of legal protection – the trade in rhino horn was declared illegal under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1975 – and beefed-up security.

When I visited the Tsavo West Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary three decades after the massacre, I was met by guards in full military fatigues and armed with machineguns. ”These rhinos in here,” one guard told me, ”they receive more protection than many African presidents.”

Kenya’s population of black rhinos grew to about 600, with the continent-wide figure thought to be 10 times that number. Efforts to save the white rhino proved even more successful, with more than 20,000 in South Africa alone. A corner had been turned, it seemed, and the battle to save the rhino was counted among the great conservation success stories of our time.

And then Vietnam acquired a taste for rhino horn.

In 2007, 13 rhinos were killed in South Africa. In the years that followed, the rate of killing grew steadily. From 2007 to 2009, one quarter of Zimbabwe’s 800 rhinos were killed, and Botswana’s rhino population has fallen to just 38. In South Africa, home to 90 per cent of the world’s white rhinos, armed guards patrol the parks.

Even so, 448 rhinos were killed in 2011. The following year, the number rose to 668. In the first 65 days of 2013, poachers killed 146 rhinos. At current rates the figure for this year will be close to 830.

As a result, rhino populations could soon reach a tipping point that may prove difficult to reverse. The rhino death rate will exceed its birth rate within two years on current trends, according to Dr Mike Knight, chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s African Rhino Specialist Group. ”We would then be eating into rhino capital.”

Chief scientist of South Africa’s National Parks Hector Magome agrees: ”If poaching continues, the rhino population will decline significantly by 2016.”

The importance of saving Africa’s black and white rhinos is given added weight by the negligible numbers for the world’s other three surviving rhino species – the almost 3000 Indian rhinos live in highly fragmented populations, while just 220 Sumatran and fewer than 45 Javan rhinos survive. Vietnam’s last population of Javan rhinos was declared extinct in October 2011.

It is proving far easier to quantify the threats faced by Africa’s rhinos than it is to arrest the decline for one simple reason: what worked in the past no longer holds.

The recent upsurge in poaching has taken place in spite of the CITES regime of international legal protection. Security is also tighter than it has ever been.

In South Africa’s Kruger National Park, home to almost half the world’s white rhinos, 650 rangers patrol an area the size of Israel or Wales. This falls well short of the one-ranger-per-10-square-kilometres ratio recommended by international experts, and more than 100 rhinos have already been killed in Kruger this year.

Thus, those charged with saving the rhino are considering radical and hitherto unimaginable solutions. One such approach gaining traction is the controversial plan to legalise the trade in rhino horn, dehorn thousands of rhinos and flood the market with newly legal horns.

Were this to happen, supporters of the proposal say, the price of rhino horn – which reached $65,000 a kilogram in 2012 – would fall, and the incentive for poaching would diminish.

Dehorning has long been opposed by conservationists – rhinos use their horns to defend themselves and while feeding. But the failure of all other methods has convinced some that the time has come to contemplate the unthinkable.

”The current situation is failing,” Dr Duan Biggs, of the University of Queensland and one of the leading advocates for legalising the trade in horns, said recently. ”The longer we wait to put in place a legal trade, the more rhinos we lose.”

Dr Biggs and others point to the legalisation of the trade in crocodile products as an example of how such a plan could work.

Critics counter that any legalisation of the trade in rhino horns is unenforceable. They also argue that lax or ineffective legal controls in Vietnam – where trading in rhino horn is already illegal – and elsewhere ensure that it will be impossible to separate legally obtained rhino horns from those supplied by poachers.

”We don’t think it would stop the poaching crisis,” says Dr Colman O’Criodain, of the World Wildlife Fund. ”We think the legal trade could make it worse.’‘

The debate about saving rhinos is riddled with apparent contradictions: that we must consider disfiguring rhinos if we are to save them; that rhino numbers have not been this high in half a century but the risk of their extinction has never been greater.

And so it is that the story of the rhinoceros has reached a crossroads. It is a story that pits, on one side, a creature that has adapted to everything millions of years of evolution have thrown at it, against, on the other, the humans that will either drive the species to extinction or take the difficult decisions necessary to save it.

News Link-: http://www.theage.com.au/world/no-horn-of-plenty-20130514-2jknt.html#ixzz2TKNlQary

Vietnam Bear Sanctuary Saved From Eviction

Animals Asia’s Vietnam bear rescue centre has been saved from the eviction threat that has been hanging over it since 5 October 2012.

A communiqué issued by the Vietnamese government confirms that Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has concluded that the rescue centre’s operation should be maintained, and that construction on the project’s second phase should continue.

This decision ensures that the 104 bears living at the centre that have been rescued from the bile industry will stay, 77 local Vietnamese staff keep their jobs, and Animals Asia who fund and operate the centre will not suffer the financial losses of US $2 million as previously feared.

Animals Asia is a charity that is devoted to ending the barbaric practice of bear bile farming and improving the welfare of animals in China and Vietnam. The Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre, located in Tam Dao National Park, is dedicated solely to the rescue of previously farmed bears in Vietnam.

Tuan Bendixsen, Vietnam Director, Animals Asia commented:
“We are very grateful to the Prime Minister for his commitment to the bear rescue centre. We look forward to working with the government to end bear bile farming and help conserve the bear species..”

Jill Robinson MBE, Founder and CEO, Animals Asia commented:
“Our priority has been to rehabilitate these bears after their years of trauma from being locked up in small cages and milked for their bile. If we had been forced to relocate it would have had a terrible impact on their well being  We want to sincerely thank the tens of thousands of supporters from around the world who wrote letters, sent e-mails and signed petitions calling for the eviction to be stopped.” 

The rescue centre was established based on the Vietnam government’s 2005 agreement with Animals Asia to fund and develop a facility on 12 hectares of the park that would permanently rehabilitate and house 200 endangered bears rescued from the illegal bear bile industry. Based on this agreement, Animals Asia has invested more than US$2 million in building and infrastructure.

News Link:-http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?UID=NQZKBOA5KJ9

A few of my related posts:-

• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/bear-bile-farming-industry-put-on-notice-by-world-conservation-congress/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/1000-doctors-in-china-sign-pledge-against-bear-bile/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/would-you-believe-me-rula-lenska-bear-bile-youtube/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/animal-asia-rescue-of-bears-from-bear-bile-farm/

Rare animal hunting runs rampant in Nghe An

Many rare wild animals in the central province of Nghe An’s mountainous areas are being hunted.

The reporter broke into a ring which specialised in rare animal meat in the province.

Pu Mat National Park located in three districts of Anh Son, Con Cuong and Tuong Duong is home to more than 1,000 wild animals. The park is targeted by many local hunters.

Lang, who leads a hunter group in Mon Son Commune, Anh Son District, said, “Earlier, we only hunted animals for food at home, but over recent years; many traders have come to the village to buy meat. A kilo of wild boar is sold at VND200,000 (USD9.52) and a kilo of silky-haired leopard is VND500,000 (USD23.8) and a kilo of white-cheeked gibbon costs VND300,000 (USD14.2). Everyday, dozens of hunters come to the national park.”

He added that, hundreds of wild animals are hunted for sale to lowlanders.

Mr. Hung, an animal trader in Con Cuong District, said the work offers him profits of nearly VND10 million (USD476) per sale. With dead animals, he used ice to freeze them, while, those which are still alive are put in cages to be transported to customers.

“We were arrested many times for wild animal trading, but now we know how to deal with concerned agencies,” Hung said.

Under Hung’s instruction, the reporter went to a restaurant in Quy Hop District to ask for a silky-haired leopard as a gift for his boss. However, the owner said the animal was very rare so he had to book for getting the product tomorrow.

When the reporter asked to buy 10 kilos of different kinds of wild animal meat, the owner also disclosed that fox, porcupine and wild boar and tortoise meat was available and she would freeze the product for him with ice so that he could take it to Vinh City.

Staff also took the reporter to the restaurant abattoir. After being slaughtered, the animals were put into fridges to serve customers gradually. This is the largest restaurant which sells wild animal meat in Quy Hop District.

The mountainous districts of Nghe An also house dozens of such restaurants.

Trans-continental traders

Mr. Ha in Do Luong District is well-known for rare animal trading.

He said that, “Earlier, I bought tortoises, snakes, varans and geckoes to sell them to agents in Vinh City. Gradually, through relationships, I moved to the trading of rare animals.”

Now, he has set up a network of traders who specialise in buying animals for him from the mountainous areas of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces. After that, Ha will specify different kinds of animals for sale. Monkeys will be sold at glue agents and fox, chamois and some others will be brought to restaurants in big cities.

Rare animals such as of silky-haired leopard, fox and white-cheeked gibbon will be sold to agents in Lang Son for sales to China.

Hung added that he has a three-ha farm in the nearby forest for gathering wild animals.

According to Hung, many people in Nghe An trade animal meat like him. Each local district has 7-8 people who have wide networks of collectors.

Tigers and rhinos have almost exhausted in Vietnamese forests, but if the reporter needs, he can get them quickly, Hung noted.

Hung also said that tigers, rhinos, elephant tusk and tail are mostly illegally transported from Laos and Africa to Vietnam. Nghe An, Hanoi and Ha Tinh have traders specialising in these products. They are trans-continental traders who sell the products to VIP customers so that they can use them for bone paste.

News Link:–http://talkvietnam.com/2012/10/rare-animal-hunting-runs-rampant-in-nghe-an/#.UIYEd2_AeSo

THE PLIGHT OF THE AFRICAN RHINO

The world’s 5 rhino species (white, black, greater one-horned, Sumatran and Javan) are facing a poaching crisis of alarming proportions and many fear that extinction looms for one of our planets most charismatic animals if effective action cannot be taken now.

Rhino numbers

The following population estimates speak to the precariousness of the rhino’s present situation: In Asia, 27-44 Javan rhino, 150-200 Sumatran rhino and 2,850 greater one-horned rhino and in Africa roughly 21,000 white rhino and perhaps 4,800 black rhino (down from 100,000 in 1960) are left in the wild.

Unprecedented levels of poaching

Most of Africa’s rhinos are found in South Africa and rates of poaching are escalating. Between 1990 and 2005 only 14 rhinos were poached each year on average. Despite having the continents best developed anti-poaching structure, in 2008 this jumped to 83, in 2009 it was 122, in 2010 it more than doubled to 333 and in 2011 448 rhinos were killed. With 394 rhino’s already killed this year, it is predicted that more than 530 and perhaps as many as 600 rhino’s will be poached this year.

Why the demand?

Despite the restrictions put in place by CITES related to rhino horn trade, poaching  is now a sophisticated and lucrative high stakes affair, fuelled by a seemingly insatiable illegal market based on traditional Asian medicine. This is especially the case in countries like China and Viet Nam where it is falsely believed that consuming rhino horn can boost sexual performance and combat diseases including cancer. Increasingly, some of Asia’s growing wealthy class are also buying rhino horn as an investment commodity and buyers are willing to pay more than £30,000 per Kg. Rhino horn is therefore worth more than its weight in gold.

What can be done?

The current poaching crisis in South Africa has provoked a huge debate about the best way to stop poaching and save rhino populations. In the short-term, greater investments are being made in law enforcement with mixed results due to the incentive for unscrupulous wildlife managers to get involved with the illegal trade. The legalization of trade in ivory horn is also being proposed as a means of raising additional funds to conserve wild rhino’s, but as Born Free CEO Will Travers explains, this is a flawed argument from a variety of perspectives:

Read Will Travers article in Africa Geographic

Follow further discussion on the Rhino horn trade debate

News Link:-http://www.bornfree.org.uk/index.php?id=34&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1121&cHash=7aab257601&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BornFreeNews+%28Born+Free%3A+Latest+News%29

Bear Bile Farming Industry Put On Notice By World Conservation Congress

Since 2007 Born Free has been supporting the tremendous work being done by Animals Asia Foundation in China and Vietnam, addressing the practice of bear bile farming and other animal welfare issues throughout the region.

Last week, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) met in the Republic of Korea for its World Conservation Congress, one of the world’s most important conservation events and attended by leaders from government, non-governmental organisations, business, UN agencies and social organisations, passing a resolution addressing the issue of bear bile farming.

Across Asia, thousands of Asiatic black (or moon) bears and sun bears are held captive and milked regularly for their bile through crude catheters or permanently open holes in their abdomens.

Despite the availability of inexpensive herbal and synthetic alternatives, bear bile continues to be used in traditional Asian medicine to cure ailments ranging from headaches to haemorrhoids. Bears are confined in cages which vary from agonisingly tiny “crush” cages to larger pens, all of which cause terrible physical and mental suffering. Bears can spend more than 30 years under these conditions.

What has this to do with conservation? The practice of bear farming was conceived as a method the impact of the use of bear bile on wild populations– the rationale unfortunately applied was that keeping bears on farms and milking them regularly instead of killing wild bears for their gall bladders which contain the bile would reduce the motivation to poach wild bears. However there is no evidence that farming has aided bear conservation and conservationists are concerned that it may in fact be detrimental.

The World Conservation Congress resolution pushes for the closure of bear farms that are stocked with wild bears. Some farms in China apparently have self-perpetuating captive populations; nevertheless, it is not clear how the burgeoning bear farming industry, with new products and advertising, is affecting demand for wild bile.

Rows of bears, probably been stuck in these cages for 10+ years! These poor bears will endure pain, suffering & torture, daily for their bile; it’s disgusting that it’s still happening… especially when there are synthetic medications available.

This resolution calls for a thorough, independent analysis of how farming is affecting the market for wild bears: if this investigation uncovers negative, market-driven effects of bear farming on wild bears, it will likely prompt a push to end farming altogether. In preparation for the future, this resolution calls for no further increase in the farmed bear population, and heightened research and promotion of alternatives to bear bile as a medicine.

The resolution also encourages Korea and Vietnam to continue their efforts towards ending bear farming and calls for countries that practice bear farming to work with the IUCN to close down illegal bear farms (those that do not comply with regulations), issue no further licenses or permits for farms, prevent an increase in bear numbers on existing farms, ensure no wild-caught bears are added to farms, conduct research into bear bile substitutes, and to establish a monitoring system to track trends in wild bear populations.

Importantly, the resolution calls for a scientifically independent, peer-reviewed situation analysis into whether all these points have been followed – most notably, how bear farming affects the conservation of wild bears. A report will be made to the next World Conservation Congress in 2016, possibly prompting further action at that time.

Jill Robinson MBE, Founder & CEO of Animals Asia commented: “The bear bile industry has been put on notice by the international community that its effects on wild bear populations are now under scrutiny and we hope to see the monitoring process beginning soon. With the conservation aspect now being fully addressed in the public arena, we are determined to continue exposing the welfare reality for thousands of bears held captive for decades on farms, with their bile extracted through open wounds cut into their gall bladders. We look forward to the day this suffering ends.”

Read the full IUCN Resolution here

News Link:-http://www.bornfree.org.uk/index.php?id=34&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1119&cHash=90d7a33517&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BornFreeNews+%28Born+Free%3A+Latest+News%29

Interesting Reading :-

 Bear Gallbladders to sell or not to sell:- http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/wildlife/large-mammals/beargalls.asp

Interesting Reading:-https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=203380955534

Interesting Reading:-http://www.animalsasia.org/

Very Interesting Reading:

The Bear Facts About Illegal Bear Bile in Vietnam.:-http://www.rjkoehler.com/2010/01/22/the-bear-facts-about-south-koreans-and-illegally-harvesting-bear-bile-in-vietnam/

“Moon Bear” Documentary Wins Award

“Moon Bear” the hard-hitting, undercover documentary showing the brutality of the bear bile industry across China, has just won a top award at the Fifth China Ya’an International Panda, Animals and Nature Film Week.

Held on August 20, 2012, the documentary was awarded audience favorite “Best Educational Value” film. 
The documentary was made by Elsa Xiong Jun Hui, Chen Yuan Zhong and Tu Qiao, three independent film-makers who devoted four years to its production, visiting small and large bear bile farms, revealing “legal” farms with conditions that are clearly breaking current regulations for such farms in China. 
The documentary was first launched at an Animals Asia press conference in February 2012, and received over one million views in the first twenty-four hours of its posting on-line. 
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?UID=PDID2QWYTU6

Viewer discretion advised – But it’s not that bad!!

Published on 13 Sep 2012 by HKAAF

Watch the hard-hitting, undercover documentary showing the brutality of the bear bile industry across China, which recently won a top award at the Fifth China Ya’an International Panda, Animals and Nature Film Week. The documentary was made by three independent film-makers who devoted four years to its production, visiting small and large bear bile farms, revealing “legal” farms with conditions that are clearly breaking current regulations for such farms in China.

The documentary was first launched at an Animals Asia press conference in February 2012, and received over one million views in the first twenty-four hours of its posting online. 
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?UID=PDID2QWYTU6

Related Posts:–

• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/1000-doctors-in-china-sign-pledge-against-bear-bile/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/would-you-believe-me-rula-lenska-bear-bile-youtube/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/brother-bear-bear-bile-farming-youtube/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/animals-asia-follow-the-china-bear-rescue-in-chengdu-youtube/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/mistreatment-of-bear-in-vietnam-part-12-youtube/
• https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/mistreatment-of-bear-in-vietnam-part-22-youtube/

Javan rhinoceros facing dire extinction threat: Study

 

WASHINGTON: American researchers have confirmed that a species of Javan rhinoceros found in Vietnam are on the verge of extinction, with only 29 of them remaining. 

“We still have a chance to save the species but before we do anything, we have to determine the profile of the remaining group,” study leader Peter de Groot said.

Researchers from the Queens and Cornell Universities used genetic tools to determine that only Javan rhino was living in Vietnam in 2009, who was later found dead a year later.

The study confirmed the demise of the Javan rhinoceros population living in Vietnam by analysing animal dung collected with the assistance of special dung detection dogs. 

The researchers are now working to save a group of 29 Javan rhinoceroses currently living in a tiny area called Ujon Kolong in Indonesia.

They will use the rhinoceros feces to determine the age, sex and pedigree of this group. This study will provide a direction to try to save the remaining population of one of the most threatened large mammal species in the world. 

The research was published in Biological Conservation.

News Link:–http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/flora-fauna/javan-rhinoceros-facing-dire-extinction-threat-study/articleshow/15364530.cms

 

Some 700 dogs rescued from slaughter in Thailand

KUALA LUMPUR: Animal rights activists in Thailand praised the seizure of around 700 dogs who had been caged and ready for transport into Vietnam where they would have been slaughtered and eaten, the Nakhon Phanom Animal Quarantine Center said on Saturday after receiving the animals as part of their recuperation.

Thai police said that they arrested a truckdriver in the Ban Phaeng district on Friday evening and discovered the animals in the back.

Driver Salud Khottakok was transporting the dogs from Sakhon Nakhon to the border in a six-wheel truck when he was stopped.

He reportedly confessed to police of being hired by a Vietnamese investor to deliver the dogs to Ban Phaeng Pier, from where they were to be taken down the Mekong River to Vietnam.

Center chief Chusak Pongpanich said in a statement that the latest batch “took the center’s dog population to about 2,000.

“The shelter has Bt8 million (S$316,800) in donated funds left, but it spends Bt30,000-40,000 a day to care for the dogs,” he said.

He urged people to donate more money, food and medicine in order to assist in the dogs recovering from the traumatic experience.

Animal trade is not uncommon in Southeast Asia, where Vietnamese and Chinese business people often hire neighboring countries out to transport dogs and cats into the country, where they will be slaughtered and served up for dinner.

News Link:–http://www.bikyamasr.com/74025/some-700-dogs-rescued-from-slaughter-in-thailand/

Here is some of video clip when the first 671 alive dogs who were rescued from Dog Meat Trade arrived at Nakorn Phanom shelter on Sat.28-July-12. 

Video link from :-https://www.facebook.com/beeproducer

Published on 31 Jul 2012 by beeproducer

Please help them as much as you can by sharing story, adoption, or even make the donatation.

More help needed at Soi Dog Foundation:-http://www.soidog.org/de/you-can-help-end-the-dog-meat-trade/

Soi Dog Home page:-https://www.soidog.org/en/sponsor-a-dog-or-cat/Default.aspx

Soi Dog The Movie

The Soi Dog Foundation (SDF) is pleased to announce the release of the full-length feature documentary Soi Dogs, produced by Environment Films. You may view a 3 minute trailer of the film above. The 66-minute documentary is far from the standard charity campaign film. Although it does give an insight into the day-to-day challenges of the foundation, it is also a human story, one that combines tragedy and compassion with humour and excitement. It is inspirational and involving throughout and is suitable for the entire family to watch.

“John and Gill Dalley moved from England to Phuket in 2003, after having visited many times before on vacation. The Dalleys had married in Phuket and decided to come back permanently to retire. Little did they know that instead of a leisurely retirement, they would work harder with Soi Dog than they ever had in England. What they found in Phuket after getting settled was a massive stray dog problem that was growing rapidly due to the growth of Phuket as a tourist destination and a place where Thais from all over Thailand came to find work. The Dalleys knew they had to try to help somehow.”

Taken from:-http://www.soidog.org/en/about-soi-dog/gills-story/

Vietnam: Punish the animal abusers who tortured and killed the two monkeys!

“Please sign the petition below, related to the previous link. These vile individuals need to seriously pay for the torturous, heinous acts committed upon 2 (1 pregnant) primates. The picture below is slightly blurred, thank goodness! I Can’t believe they thought posting such graphic pictures, of their vile actions, to face book would be ok..these are not children, they are soldiers, who walk around with deadly weapons.!!”

July 24, 2012 – petition started by Occupy for Animals!

A horrible crime against animals happened last week in Vietnam: three Vietnamese soldiers tortured, skinned alive, eviscerated and barbecued two monkeys – a male and a pregnant female.

One of them had posted the pictures on Facebook triggering a public outcry in Vietnam that had finally lead to the arrest of these murderers who have admitted the killings.

What is very worrying about the incident is that the young soldier who posted the photos on Facebook did not think he did anything wrong, says Nga Pham from BBC Vietnamese.

By signing this petition, a message will be sent instantly to the Vietnamese authorities calling for severe punishment of the abusers and that thus, an example is being set. Furthermore, do we ask the Vietnamese government to introduce a mandatory animal rights and animal welfare education in all primary schools because it appears from this incident, that some Vietnamese citizens do not realize that torturing and killing sentient beings is wrong and that it is a criminal act.

For more information about this crime, please see our website but be WARNED that the article contains a very shocking picture:

http://www.occupyforanimals.org/three-vietnamese-soldiers-tortured-and-skinning-alive-before-eviscerating-and-barbecuing-two-rare-monkeys.html

Petition Link1:-http://www.change.org/petitions/vietnam-punish-the-animal-abusers-who-tortured-and-killed-the-two-monkeys?utm_campaign=petition_page&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition

Petition Link2:–http://www.thepetitionsite.com/449/567/689/demand-justice-for-endangered-monkeys-killed-in-vietnam/?cid=FB_TAF_NPO

Petition link3:-http://forcechange.com/27601/demand-justice-for-endangered-monkeys-killed-in-vietnam/

Related:–https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/vietnamese-soldiers-held-over-deaths-of-rare-monkeys/

Vietnamese soldiers held over deaths of rare monkeys

Vietnamese authorities have detained three soldiers suspected of torturing and killing two rare monkeys, state-run Voice of Vietnam newspaper reports.

The monkeys were endangered grey-shanked douc langurs

One of the men had posted photos on Facebook showing how the monkeys were killed, triggering a public outcry.

The monkeys were endangered grey-shanked douc langurs (Pygathrix cinerea), reports say.

The soldiers, stationed in Vietnam‘s Central Highlands area, are now under investigation.

One of them, Nguyen Van Quang, who is serving in the Tay Nguyen Command of the Vietnamese army, posted photos of the monkeys on his Facebook page last week.

The photos showed one of the monkeys, believed to be pregnant, being made to smoke a cigarette before it was tortured and killed.

Col Nguyen Van Hai, head of Tay Nguyen Command’s Military Prosecutor’s Office, told the Voice of Vietnam that the soldiers had been detained and were being questioned.

“We’re still continuing our investigation into the case. When we have enough evidence, they [the soldiers] will be dealt with in accordance with Vietnamese military laws,” he said.

He added that the three had admitted killing the monkeys and said they had bought them from locals.

The men, who were identified on Thursday, are set to appear in a military court on an as yet unspecified date.

What is more worrying about the incident is that the young soldier who posted the photos on Facebook did not think he did anything wrong, says Nga Pham from BBC Vietnamese.

Authorities now realise that they need to do something to educate people, especially the young, about animal welfare and protection, she adds.

News Link:-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18923533