Project update - November 2005

Report from Jill Robinson, Founder of the Animals Asia Foundation.

This has been a mixed time of events and emotions and this startedas a quick update, but so much has happened that it's grown and grown.

Some sad news to start - our beloved Sai was gently euthanised on 18th September. She'd been slowly deteriorating as a result of a badly arthritic back, which finally resulted in her being unable to use her hind limbs. X-rays of her body - which were very kindly and surprisingly allowed by the local Chinese human hospital - showed that she had severe spondylosis from which she would never recover. A deeply moving cremation/burial was later filmed by a UK Newspaper, the Western Daily Press (WDP), who were our guests on site for the week (having raised funds over the past year to sponsor 5 bears and a whole bear house!) and local Chinese TV stations from Chengdu and Shanghai.

Those of us who hadn't seen the latest cub went round for a quick peek. This was the little lad which arrived at our front door, with barely a day's notice on 15th September, from Yele Nature Reserve. Now around 18 months of age he is a sweetheart - but a very frightened and withdrawn sweetheart - who's sharing a room in the Hospital with Moonbeam (Chinese name Mimi) who also recently arrived from a nature reserve. We have to remind ourselves how Prince, Bonny, Somerset and Sunshine arrived - all aggressive little balls of misery and hate, who missed their mums and saw us as the devil himself. All four of these utter delinquents are now ruling the roost in the outside enclosures and, in their own way, showing how patience and all the love and care in the world will finally win over our new little guy. Still to be named, he is one of the 5 WDP bears.

The other four WDP bears arrived on Monday 19th September, in a truck containing 5 caged and miserable victims from a farm in Yuexi in southern Sichuan. Peeling back the tarpaulin, we saw two sets of tiny frightened eyes peering out cautiously from one shared cage and realised that we had two 7 month old cubs who had been born on the farm this year. Piecing together information from the farmer who had actually accompanied his bears to our Sanctuary we realised that we had not only two cubs, but their Mum - and Dad - as well. A final independent female and our family was complete.

Tragically the expected other truck containing 15 bears from another farm never turned up. At the last moment the farmer reneged on his promise and gave his bears to another farm. We are sick and disgusted - as are our Government partners - and have meetings planned with high level officials who are out of the country, but who return to Chengdu at the end of October. Obviously our ultimate aim is to close the whole farm where the bears have been sent and secure them all but, as ever, actions like this must wait until we learn more. Meanwhile, our Government partners in Sichuan are continuing to help us in the rescue - and we are hopeful that another 20 bears will arrive with us in November.

A quick summary of our new family; Mum is 6 years of age with a gorgeous white snip of fur on her nose, and is now named Starlight by the Western Daily Press and has a healed "free drip" scar. Dad is 7 years old, a gentle, sweet natured bear named Blue by the WDP and has an open, leaking free drip site. The other female (again a "free drip" victim), is 6 years old, and named Kroenchen (Little Crown) by the kind and generous staff and readers of the Kronen Zeitung newspaper in Austria. All adults will require major surgery - not onlyto remove their damaged gall bladders, but to extract shattered and decayed teeth as a result of stressed bar biting, and repair internal damage inflicted by the so-called surgeons who mutilated their bodies so that their bile could be cruelly tapped.

Without the need for words, everyone on site was clearly thinking the same thing. Is there any way that we can quickly integrate Mum and her babies?. Will she accept them? In the wild she would have them with her for two years or more but, separated since May, there was a very real risk that she would no longer want them in her space - how could we be sure that she wouldn't shun or even hurt them?

Starlight told us herself. Nosing up to them at every opportunity as their cages were placed side by side, and becoming stressed and upset when she couldn't see them properly, it was clear she was frantic to be with them again. They too, wanted only to see her in their sights and stretched tiny arms through the bars of the cage, desperately wanting to feel her soft, warm body next to theirs.

The next afternoon, following a veterinary and management protocol which would fill an encyclopaedia, Starlight and her cubs were released into two separate dens - again to make sure that one more overnight of seeing, hearing, smelling and touching each other through the bars of the dens would finally reassure us - and them - that the time was right.

On Wednesday morning, with everyone's hearts in mouths, the dividing doors were opened. Briefly touching their noses, Starlight clearly had something on her mind and walked purposefully into their den, carefully checking out every nook and cranny where they had spent the night, until she was satisfied that everything was safe and secure. The cubs, sensing perhaps that she had a job to do, left her to it, and confidently swaggered into her den - exploring new smells and investigating her toys.

Finally, as we all watched with nervous apprehension, they met up together in the same den and each cub stood up and simply, but beautifully, rubbed noses with their mother. From then on, there was no looking back. Satisfied that they were all safe, she visibly relaxed and after months of separation began learning again how to look after her young. Sometimes she seemed uncertain and unsure, but her babies knew exactly what to do and scrambled all over her body in delight - before falling off again in a tumble of arms and legs. Their bedroom backs on to mine and, that night, after turning out the light and looking through the glass, I saw the best view in the world - a family previously ripped apart, now reunited, as Starlight held her sleeping babies in quiet and loving contentment.

Meanwhile, Blue is naturally separated from them (as he would be in the wild) - but again is a sweet little guy who just loves his food and has only ever shown a calm and placid nature. He'll soon have his surgery, as will Kroenchen - whilst Starlight can afford to wait some months as her previous surgery scar has healed, and as her cubs grow larger.

At the height of all this excitement, our wonderful bear workers began to report that something was wrong with Erl in Den 2. Eating only when in his basket bed, and not coming down for food as normally in the past, the workers instincts were causing alarm bells to ring. Because this was unusual behaviour for Erl and because of their trust in the workers, Gail and Kati and our fabulous vet girls took this seriously and Erl was soon sleeping soundly under anaesthetic on the surgery table. Following the examination and ultrasound, it was a terrible shock for everyone to hear that Erl had a seriously abnormal liver - and would never recover.

As Kati injected the drug to put him to sleep, the whole surgery room was filled with Chinese and western bear lovers who cried unashamedly at the death of our friend. A beautiful bear who had been with us for nearly five years he was adored by everyone. More tears were shed at his funeral - not only for him, but in sad recollection that there are so many out there on the farms relying on us to set them free.

With thoughts of Erl still lingering in our hearts, we walked around to the nursery den to see the cubs at the beginning of a new circle of life - taking comfort at their sheer joy of being alive, and knowing that they were probably the first farmed bears to be guaranteed the full term love of their mother and a life free of torture

Today, I was coming to the end of the story and only had to say the hugest, proudest thanks for all of our staff - here on site, in Hong Kong, and in all the country offices - plus our wonderful support groups and individuals around the world - who join together as one. Too many people to mention individually - but all sharing and believing without a shadow of doubt that we will reach our final goal and the day when bear farming will be relegated to the history books.

That was where it was going to end...... until blood results taken from Andrew last week arrived today. Lying on the surgery table on Friday, being prepared for a simple dental to remove a problem canine tooth, our beautiful sleeping "Anderloo" was having a routine ultrasound of his abdomen, when the vet's face showed a flicker of concern - she called Gail over to check on what she suspected. Together they confirmed that the shadows we saw on the screen could be liver problems, and indeed as it took him over 8 hours to fully come round from the anaesthetic, and with suspect blood results today, it is slowly beginning to dawn that our beloved Andrew - our number one bear who taught us so much - might now not be with us for ever. The liver biopsy results will be with us in a couple of weeks, and he is back in his den with his friends, eating well and behaving like the Andrew we know and love. Please send prayers, positive vibes, love and virtual bear hugs for our beautiful, three legged gentle giant.

The total caged and farmed bears rescued to date is 194, with 161 living today.

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