The nightmare of bear bile farming is over for these rescued bears, now they celebrate Halloween by devouring jack-o-lantern pumpkins.

At Animals Asia’s Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre, nearly 200 moon and sun bears live happy lives.

They forage for food, climb trees and swim in pools just as they would in the wild.

For these bears, sanctuary life is a million miles away from the life they have known on Vietnam’s notorious bear bile farms.

Many of the bears spent as many as 17 years trapped alone in tiny cages so that their bile could be extracted for use in traditional medicine.

For all that time they had nothing to do. They never touched a blade of grass, never played with another bear, and never ate the food they have evolved to need.

Upon rescue many have serious health problems such as psychological trauma, blindness, missing limbs, broken and infected teeth, and open wounds.

But at the sanctuary each bear is made well again by hugely experienced vets and bear managers so that they can enjoy their new lives.

Instead of the unsuitable rice gruel and left-over slops they ate for years on the farm, the bears’ diet consists of delicious fruit and vegetables such as apples, pears, carrots, mangoes, sweet potato and pumpkin.

And of course, for Halloween, the bears get extra helpings of pumpkin which they can smash with glee.

Animals Asia Vietnam Bear and Vet Team Director Heidi Quine said:

“The bears just love breaking open pumpkins. It’s is great fun for them and also keeps them busy as they work out the best way to break them open and how to scoop out all the flesh. It’s also a bit of a work out as the pumpkins are strong and heavy. But of course the bears are so enormously strong that they lift them up, break them and chomp through them as if they were apples.”

Bear bile farming has been illegal in Vietnam since 2005 when every bear in captivity was microchipped. However, without facilities to hold the over 4,000 bears on farms at the time, those holding the bears were permitted to keep them, and the practice persisted.

However, in 2017, the government signed a landmark partnership agreement with Animals Asia that will see every farm closed and the remaining approximately 800 bears sent to sanctuaries by 2022 as the country works to eradicate the cruel trade.

Moon bears are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, and categorised as endangered by CITES. More than 10,000 are held on bear bile farms in China, and around 800 are also trapped in cages as part of the industry in Vietnam. 

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