By Angela Leary
Publications Manager, Animals Asia Foundation

CHENGDU, Sichuan Province, China – A tall tree casts a dappled shadow over the wooden bench where Jill Robinson comes to sit near the graves of those she saved, then lost.

One plot, marked by a simple cross, belongs to Andrew, the first farmed Moon Bear rescued by Robinson’s Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation (AAF). It overlooks a waterway that rushes through a bamboo grove. In China, the dead rest easier with a pleasant vista.

In 2006, Andrew died at his bamboo-forest home in Chengdu, a victim of liver cancer related to his brutal incarceration on a bile farm. With his death, China lost a leading statesman. So did the animal kingdom. This forgiving and intelligent Asiatic black bear (they’re known as Moon Bears due to an egg-yolk-yellow crescent on their chests) is an icon in the AAF’s battle to end the cruel bear-bile trade in China.

A three-metre-high, 300-kilogram statue of three-legged Andrew greets visitors to the AAF’s bear sanctuary. This stunning artwork came as a donation from the renowned Shanghai sculptor Tsao Zhi Rong, known for his monuments to former Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung. An inscription on Andrew’s monument will read, “We are not weaker without you, but stronger because of you.”

The towering sculpture captures Andrew’s physical likeness and majestic spirit. “Andrew was the most generous, forgiving bear, a gentle giant,” Robinson said. “He looked out for the younger bears and always encouraged the distressed new arrivals. He was like a favorite uncle to the others and a tower of strength to the Moon Bear Rescue project, so it’s fitting that a beautiful statue of him will look over the sanctuary for decades to come.”

For Andrew, born in the early 1990s in the misty forests of Sichuan, a carefree cub-life ended in the clamp of a poacher’s trap. Soon missing his left foreleg, Andrew spent the next five to 10 years wracked with pain in a coffin-sized cage on a farm in nearby Zhiyang. Each day, he was “milked” for bile through a crude metal catheter thrust into his abdomen. He ate little. Hungry bears produce more bile for the medicine trade. Without free access to water, he endured constant thirst.

Other methods of bile extraction include the so-called “humane” free-drip technique, with the bile leaking from permanently open wounds. Metal grilles in the “crush” cages often push the bears flat to the bottom bars to make the extraction easier. Some stay in such cages for more than 20 years.

At the sanctuary, bears arrive with crippling ailments like arthritis, peritonitis, weeping ulcers and ingrown claws. They need surgery to remove their damaged gall bladders. Many have broken teeth from years of biting at the bars of cages. Others are missing limbs. Remarkably, nearly all of these stoic animals put the past behind them, learning to walk, run, swim and interact with the other rescued bears.

Although it’s illegal to export bear products from China, a black-market trade thrives. For bile, the major markets are Japan, Korea and China. Bear parts, bile powder and related items reach Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the US and Canada. The bile is a traditional remedy for fever, liver disease, sore eyes and more, but synthetic and herbal alternatives are available.

The AAF’s ambitious bear-rescue project began in 1993 when Robinson, a Briton who’d promoted animal welfare in Asia for 12 years, visited a bear-bile farm. “It was a torture chamber, a hell-hole for animals. They couldn’t move, stand up or turn around,” she said.

Robinson has devoted years to lobbying, negotiating and fundraising. In July 2000, the AAF signed a landmark agreement with the Chinese authorities to rescue 500 bears in Sichuan, to aim for the end of bear farming and to promote herbal alternatives to bear bile. Never before had an outside animal-welfare group struck such a deal. The rescues began when Hong Kong industrialist Frank Pong pledged US$1 million and asked that the first bear be named “Andrew” after his grandson.

More than 200 bears have been rescued. The farmers involved had their licenses rescinded, but were compensated so they could retire or change jobs. Officially, 7,000 bears remain trapped on Chinese farms, but Robinson suspects a much higher total.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species lists the Asiatic black bear in the most critical category. They range from Iran to Japan and across Southeast Asia, but fewer than 25,000 remain in the wild.

Moon Bears can live up to 35 years. Their diet is mostly vegetables, grains, fruits and nuts, but depending on location, they also may eat insects, small mammals, birds and carrion.

Farmed Moon Bears in Vietnam appear next on the help-list. For eight years, the AAF has negotiated with the Vietnamese government. In 2005, the authorities promised to phase out bear-bile farms. Last year, the AAF signed a deal to rescue 200 bears. Although bear farming has been illegal in Vietnam since 1999, nothing firm had happened to halt the practice, partly because any rescued bears had no refuge.

Now a sanctuary takes shape in a beautiful valley beside the Tam Dao National Park near Hanoi. “Fifty terrified, sick and emaciated Moon Bears will start arriving soon,” said Robinson.

With the AAF’s executive director Annie Mather and its Vietnam director Tuan Bendixsen, Robinson recently visited an area in Ha Tay Province notorious for bear farms. “Ads for bile appeared outside each farm,” she said. “We saw rows of miserable victims. One farmer astonished us with a casual offer to anaesthetise a bear and extract bile in front of us for US$100. As we walked away, he slashed the offer to US$60.

“In Hanoi, we found many shops selling ‘fresh bear bile’ and products with the ‘magical’ ingredient. These traders rake in enormous profits, prescribing bear bile for everything from haemorrhoids to hangovers.”

In October 2000, Andrew became the first of more than 60 rake-thin Moon Bears to arrive at the AAF’s China sanctuary. He made an immediate impression. Most bears cowered in terror or thrashed wildly in their cages, but Andrew stayed calm. “He lay on his back and picked at the bits of metal holding his rusty cage together as if knowing he’d start a new life, a safe one,” Robinson recalls.

Other people also adored the majestic animal. “Everyone loved Andrew,” said the rescue centre manager Toby Zhang. “He became our special bear.”

Rescue worker Xiao Huang, who nourished “Anderloo” (his Chinese name) back to health after he arrived, joined the mourners at a simple ceremony as Andrew’s body burned on a funeral pyre. “He’d come when I called him. I loved him. I fed him,” she told a TV crew before fleeing in tears.

When arriving, Andrew weighed just 130 kilograms. Within months, he hit 190 kilos. He loved to eat and savoured a new diet of fresh fruit, grain, raisins and honey. Soon he towered over the other bears, a gentle giant fond of napping in the afternoon sun.

Like Andrew, about a dozen young-to-middle-aged rescue-bears ultimately developed fatal liver tumors, and the AAF anticipates many more. A veterinarian who performed Andrew’s post-mortem suspects the farming methods as the cause.

Happily, there are bright spots. At an April 2007 meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, participant Ms Zhou Ping from Chengdu advanced a proposal to end bear-bile farming, reflecting a national rise in awareness about animal welfare. The European Parliament in Brussels has a campaign urging China to end bear farming. And Rainbow Zhu, the sanctuary’s public relations manager, handles more media queries. “Every few days we clip an article from the Chinese press. That’s real progress.”

The Chengdu sanctuary, with its US$100,000 monthly overhead, needs a steady income-stream. The 140 local staffers include bear managers, maintenance workers, drivers, horticulturalists, public-relations people, administrators and veterinarians. There’s an Education Village – a first for China – where visitors hear the AAF’s anti-cruelty messages. Thousands of students visit.

“No matter what it costs, no matter what it takes, bear-bile farming must be stopped,” Robinson vows. “No animal should endure the nightmare that poor Andrew did.”

For more information: www.animalsasia.org

ARCHIVES

Jill Robinson and Andrew build a firm friendship.


Caged and cramped, Andrew arrives at the sanctuary.


Heavier and happier, Andrew becomes a gentle
giant, 'favorite uncle' and tower of strength.


In 2006, Jill bids a fond farewell to Andrew, her
first bear refugee, ultimately a cancer victim.


In spirit, Andrew probably still watches
events at the AAF's Moon Bear sanctuary.


(Photos Copyright Animals Asia Foundation)