Last week, Susan from our China office flew over to Korea to join the Korean Animal Welfare Association (KAWA) to launch an exciting initiative aimed at Korean tourists travelling to China.

Many bear farmers in China are specifically targeting visitors from Korea and persuading them to buy bear bile for illegal export back home - and often the tourists have no idea how cruelly the bears are treated, or how unsafe the bear bile is. Now KAWA and Animals Asia have teamed up with travel agents who will inform their clients about the reality of this hideous industry.

My dear friend, and Patron of Animals Asia UK, Born Free Founder Virginia McKenna is also enthusiastically endorsing this campaign and kindly sent these words of support:

"It is enormously encouraging to learn that Animals Asia and the Korean Animal Welfare Association have launched a vigorous public awareness campaign regarding the importation of bear bile into South Korea. No one who has witnessed the tortured lives of the ‘moon bears’ could possibly wish to prolong their wretchedness by buying the bile. The health problems the bile is believed to address can be dealt with perfectly wghastly experience. I have also visited Animal Asia’s sanctuaries in China and Vietnam. From there, I treasure wonderful and uplifting memories.

Bear ‘farms’ should never be a tourist attraction unless yell by other means.

I have been to so-called bear ‘farms’ and so I write from my personal and unforgettably ou wish to shock and shame people. I applaud all travel companies who take a stand on this issue and who will never include these places on their tourist itinerary. Bears are wild animals and deserve to live in a natural environment as nature intended.

I wish everyone involved in this campaign the success they, and the bears, deserve."

- Virginia McKenna OBE, UK Patron Animals Asia

May this campaign have the desired effect so that caring tourists from Korea join the growing number of people in China who are standing up against bear farming and refusing to buy or consume bile.