An Animals Asia rescue team has arrived on the scene in the Tay Ninh province of southern Vietnam to rescue a lone female sun bear.

We don’t know much about this poor, forlorn bear. We don’t know how long she’s been stuck in her cage. We don’t yet know if she’s had bile extracted.

But we do know that she needs us and our team has traveled more than 1,500 kilometres to rescue her.

With the holidays upon us, we are calling this beautiful little sun bear “Aurora,” which means “a natural light display” and “goddess of the dawn.”

The area where the bear is kept is in a remote region on the Vietnam-Cambodia border and is 150 kilometres northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. Since the location is on the border, the area is under the control of the Southern Public security department.

Our Vietnam team learned about Aurora from a traditional medicine practitioner based in Tay Ninh who we’ve been working with the last four years promoting herbal alternatives to bear bile. He traveled to this remote location and alerted our team to the plight of this bear.

Once Aurora has been cut out of her cage, it will be a five-day journey of 1,547 kilometres back to our sanctuary — the Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre — in beautiful Tam Dao National Park. She will go through a 45-day quarantine period and the plan is that she will eventually be able to be integrated with several of our community of eleven other sun bears.

 

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Animals Asia’s Vietnam Director Tuan Bendixsen said:

“We don’t know much about Aurora or her history, but she is likely to be traumatised and depressed from her extreme isolation in a barren cage for what has likely been quite a few years. Our vet team will conduct a preliminary health check of her here on site to ensure it is safe for her to travel. Then upon her arrival at the sanctuary, she will be prioritized for a complete health check to check her for any ailments that might need immediate attention.”

Former bile bears can suffer from a host of health conditions from hypertension and blindness to arthritis and cancer. Since we don’t yet know if Aurora has had her bile extracted, we don’t know what sort of health conditions she may have. However, our excellent vet team is on the case and will soon know what sort of interventions she requires.

Bear bile farming has been illegal in Vietnam since 2005 when every bear in captivity was microchipped. However, due to a lack of sanctuaries necessary to hold the more than 4,000 bears found to be on farms, farmers were permitted to keep their bears. Thus, the practice of bile extraction persisted.

In 2017, however, the government signed a landmark agreement with Animals Asia to shut down every bear bile farm and send all remaining 800 bears to sanctuaries by 2022. Animals Asia and the Vietnam government are now working in partnership to make that a reality.

Animals Asia is a pioneer in combatting the bear bile farming industry. In 1998, it was the first to expose the harsh realities of this once-hidden trade. It has since rescued more than 600 bears from the industry in both Vietnam and China. In just the last four months, Animals Asia has successfully rescued eight bears, including Aurora, from farms throughout Vietnam.

The organization’s Founder and CEO, Jill Robinson, is considered the world’s leading authority on bear bile farming, having dedicated her life to exposing and eradicating this brutal industry for more than 20 years. Today, just over 200 bears live in peace and tranquility at Animals Asia’s Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre, while 192 others are looked after by the organization in China.

Animals Asia’s work to rescue bears from the merciless cruelty of the bear bile industry and provide them with peaceful and cruelty-free lives at our sanctuaries is entirely funded by the public. You can help give Aurora and bears like her a new beginning — send a gift today. 

Supporters can follow the #WishUponAStarRescue as it happens via the rescue timeline, as well as on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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