Free the Bears at Phnom Tamao

You have to wonder what sort of complete sicko would think that it’s a good idea to cut off a paw from a healthy bear just in order to eat the paw. Actually, they make it into bear paw soup. What is wrong with such people?

Mary Hutton was watching TV one night in 1993 in suburban Perth, when she saw a documentary on the bear bile trade. She established Free the Bears, an NGO almost entirely supported by donations from Australians. By the end of 1997 Free the Bears had opened its first rescue facility at Phnom Tamao, on a small hill in the jungle about 50 kilometres south of Phnom Penh. Today there are over 120 Asiatic black bears, known as moon bears due to the white crescent on their chests, and the smaller sun bears at Phnom Tamao, where the enclosures cover about 7 hectares. It is the world’s largest sanctuary for sun bears.

Other rescue centres are at Hon Me near Rach Gia in Kien Giang province on the south coast of Vietnam; Tat Kuong Si Park India near Luang Prabang in northern Laos; and the Agra, Bannerghata (near Bangalore), Van Vihar (near Bhopal), and Purulia (West Bengal) bear rescue centres in India.

Free the Bears aims to rescue bears and provide them with a happy, stable, healthy life. A long-term aim is to reintroduce some of them to the wild, and the first steps were taken recently when 2 bears were moved to a half-way house arrangement in the Cardamon Mountains in western Cambodia.

But this is a very difficult step to take. When the bears are rescued, they have been living in appalling conditions and are emotionally and physically scarred to the extent that reintroduction is not feasible. Of course, if they have had a paw cut off, there is no prospect of them surviving in the wild.

The main problem is not the restaurant trade but the trade in bear bile, which is used in traditional Chinese and other Asian medicines. Koreans are particularly fond of it. Four weeks ago the Guardian reported that an animal farm for producing tiger parts and bear bile in Southern China gets 3 tour groups of 30 Koreans each day, buying black bear bile and tiger wine. Almost all the bear bile exported from Vietnam goes to Korea. The use of bear bile is widespread within Vietnam despite the Government having banned bear bile farming in 2005.

In order to extract the bear bile, the bears are kept in tiny cages. They are usually malnourished. People who do this activity are not interested in spending money on feeding the bears more than is needed to keep them alive. Many bears are found with injuries to their heads from having bashed their heads against the cages. The bile farmers anaethetise the bears for the operation to remove the bile.

The really stupid thing is that the active ingredient in bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), is widely available in a synthetic form. There is no benefit in anyone using bear bile. How brainless is it to continue to do so?

The work done by Free the Bears is important. More information is available at http://www.freethebears.org.au/

There are other NGOs that work to protect moon bears and sun bears in Asia, including Wildlife at Risk and Animals Asia.

Bears are not the only creatures treated badly in this part of the world. Phnom Tamao also has rescued elephants, tigers, gibbons, and birds. All of them have large enclosures to roam or fly around in. In most cases the natural bush has just been enclosed and some improvements have been made, such as the construction of pools and climbing frames.

Take a tuk tuk or a car from Phnom Penh to Phnom Tamao and see the wonderful work that the team at Free the Bears is doing. The trip from Phnom Penh is never dull, and you can have an excellent cheap lunch at one of the local restaurants.

It’s a great day trip, and you can support a very worthwhile cause doing important work.