As our gorgeous Snoopy explores her new world of sight, please let me say a huge thank you of behalf of the whole team (and of course, Snoopy) for all your messages of support. Snoops was especially chuffed with her “Get Well Soon” cards ;-)
The sadness we all felt that Snoopy wasn’t progressing as well as we’d hoped rippled through the sanctuary. Despite the advice to “be patient” from ophthalmologists Claudia and David of the Animal Health Trust in the UK who had so generously come over and operated on Snoopy and our other blind and partially sighted bears, I think we were all feeling a little down.
When one of our volunteer vet nurses, the lovely Anne Letham-White, returned to her native New Zealand, she took with her much more than her amazing memories of her time with us in Chengdu. I asked Anne if she would write down her story of Xiao Hua (Litle Flower) so I could share it with you. So here, in Anne’s own words
While I was in Vietnam recently with our gorgeous bears (and team!) in the beautiful Tam Dao sanctuary just outside Hanoi, our amazing celebrity supporter Karen Mok was in Chengdu with our bears, dogs and cats!
Our lovely friend Professor Marc Bekoff got together with Dr Dame Jane Goodall this week in Denver, Colorado. In the midst of speeches, Jane reached out and signed a beaming Marc’s Animals Asia t-shirt.
After hearing about poor Mafi leaving us, one of our ex-staff members, lovely Anne Marie McGivern, wrote wondering why Mafi didn’t show any obvious signs of being sick:
As visiting ophthalmologists Claudia and David from Animal Health Trust are here with us on site at our sanctuary in Chengdu, so generously giving their time to bring sight back to some of our blind bears, these days were meant to be filled with wonder and joy as bears such as Snoopy will hopefully be able see for the very first time.
The dreaded “policeman’s knock” came at 9.20am on Thursday. It was Jill on the line, her voice trembling slightly: “Oh Ange, I’m so sorry ….” I knew immediately it was Mafi.
I wish you could have been at the Sichuan Hotel this weekend, hearing the leaders of 49 animal-welfare groups and 18 vet clinics across China speaking about the successes and struggles of rescuing animals, caring for animals – and giving animals their voice.
With generous funding from major sponsors Humane Society International (HSI), we were able to fund flights and accommodation for the delegates – almost none of whom would have been
Why does it always happen like this? Just when we celebrate the life of a bear (Jasper’s this week), we lose the life of one we hold so dear. Mafi's behaviour was typical for this time of year – a semi-dormancy, which sees the bears eating less and sleeping more.
Jill founded Animals Asia in 1998, after an encounter with a caged bear on a farm in China changed her life forever. She now heads a team of over 300 enthusiastic staff and divides her time between our bear rescue centres in China and Vietnam and our Hong Kong head office. She travels extensively to participate in conferences and speak at fundraising events.
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