Looking after the 185 bears at the Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre is a big job that requires a lot of care, energy and love. It’s also a lot of fun, no more so than on the day of the Bear-lympics, a team-building day where the bear and vet team played games, tried out new toys and enrichment activities for the bears and had lots of fun in the process!

The team were using the newly constructed Little Toy Bear House for their team-building day before the bears make it their home. To get into the mindset of a bear, the team started by exploring an enclosure like a bear would; with curiosity and playfulness searching for prize tickets hidden in the enclosure like bear enrichments. The group then divided into smaller teams to compete in a number of games including walking races into the bear dens, a coconut-cracking contest, and a toy-building creative activity. Some of the participants were more competitive than others, but everyone had a lot of fun and laughed a lot throughout the day!

Our Senior Bear Team Manager Sarah van Herpt said of the day:

“The Bear-lympics were a great way for the team to get together in a really playful way and connect with each other and the bears’ experience of living at the sanctuary. We spend all of our time making sure that the bears exercise and are mentally stimulated and the Bear-lympics was a great way of focusing on their playfulness, too. Caring for the bears here is a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year job and it’s essential to bring the team together from time to time for a bit of fun and team-building. It takes every single member of the team here to give the bears this level of love, care and attention, so we’re very thankful to have this absolutely amazing team.”

Please join us in celebrating all of the winners of the Bear-lympics 2019. The biggest winners of course are the bears themselves who, having suffered in many cases decades of neglect, now have the most fantastic, passionate people looking after them. They might not have any medals, but they’re all worth their weight in gold!

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