VietNamNet
Bridge – Thirty-five bears have been
rescued by a wildlife conservation organisation based in HCM City that protects
bears from trafficking and being raised in household cages.
The
bears are being rehabilitated at the Cat Tien Bear Sanctuary in southern Dong
Nai Province, which was set up by the non-profit organisation Wildlife at Risk
(WAR).
The
bears had been exploited by humans or abused during the trafficking process.
According
to Nguyen Van Cuong, manager of the sanctuary, most of the bears were rescued
from cages at households that take out the bile form the animals' gallbladders.
"The
bears are usually in very bad health due to overexploitation of the gallbladder,
and also because of poor feeding as well as bad caretaking," Cuong said.
On an
area of 3.5ha of forestland, the rescued bears have received treatment for
wounds and disease and have been given nutritious food, health check-ups and
training.
"Each
bear practices for three to six hours in a spacious area that we named the
‘half-wild zone,' where they can run, climb, sleep on trees, find water to
drink or collect dry seeds to eat," Cuong said.
The
area covers 1.5ha of the sanctuary's total area under the shade of trees in the
Cat Tien National Park.
The
activities are carried out in groups of bears that are familiar with each
other.
Two
bears are kept in a cage that has a water fountain and two steel hammocks on
which they can sleep.
Cuong
said bears liked to sleep in trees and the hammock was one way to regain their
natural instincts after years of being imprisoned in cages by illegal breeders.
In Viet
Nam, people started bears raising for gallbladder in 1993, following a trend
that began in North Korea and then South Korea and China in the 1980s.
Oriental
medicine uses gallbladders to cure many symptoms, including stomach problems,
liver cancer, external treatment of bruises and stomachaches.
Wealthy
men use gallbladder as an ingredient in a wine mixture that is used for good
health.
This
trend has contributed to the gallbladder's reputation as a magic medicine among
men, which has led to a robust illegal trade.
About
5,000 bears, including moon bears (Ursus Thibetanus) and sun bears (Ursus
Malayanus), are being kept by illegal traders in Viet Nam, who put bears in a
small cage and take out the gallbladder bile at least four times a year.
Though
raising wild bears is illegal, the practice in Viet Nam continues unabated.
Cuong
said that most bears that were rescued were in bad health, with opaque eyes,
many wounds on their skin, and inflamed abdomens.
"They
can't move in the small cages and they were not fed enough. Sanitation was
really bad as well," he explained. "People overexploited the
gallbladder until they became exhausted." Their abdomen became inflamed
because of many contacts with needles used to take out bile from the
gallbladder.
Some of
the rescued bears in the sanctuary even lost their paws. One folk tale says
that bear paws can restore men's sexual health.
Meals
from bear paws are nutritious but they do not enhance sexual health, according
to experts. Illegal raising of bears usually leaves the bear unhealthy, and
after so many years of poor care, the bears' paws are cut off for sale. Thus,
the paw is no longer nutritious.
Do Thi
Thanh Huyen, WAR's wildlife education manager, said the number of bears rescued
from illegal raisers had been increasing and it had become a burden on the WAR
budget to fund the sanctuary.
"We
try to collect funds every single quarter from donors to help us at the
sanctuary," she said.
The
initial purpose of the sanctuary, set up in 2002, was to rescue bears from
trafficking.
Cuong,
who is also the chief veterinarian of the sanctuary, said rescued bears often
could not regain their natural instincts.
WAR
continues to rescue bears so they will not be killed after exploitation.
There
are 63 bears at WAR sanctuaries, including those in Cat Tien and Cu Chi in HCM
City and Hon Me in southern Kien Giang Province.
VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News
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