A post shared by Animals Asia (@animalsasia) on Feb 24, 2017 at 12:33am PST

 

For rescued moon bears Hercules and Kujira, life after the tumult of bear bile farming is better spent together, but much has had to be overcome.

Both Hercules and Kujira – whose name means “whale” in Japanese – have overcome extreme adversity.

When they were rescued from bear bile farms in Vietnam in 2015, Kujira was completely blind, while Hercules – kept for a decade in a cramped cage – was too scared to venture outside.

Today, they wrestle and play together on the grass without a care in the world – two kindred spirits with a shared dark past, both helping each other to forget.

Kujira’s blindness has been cured thanks to surgery by visiting specialists, while unwavering care and patience has given Hercules the courage to overcome his fear of open spaces and the unknown.

Finally, these two awe-inspiring individuals are living the lives they were meant to live, Hercules and “the whale” testing their strength against each other in friendly wrestles and full-blooded bear hugs.

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