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Animals Asia Foundation

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Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) is a Hong Kong-headquartered charity that runs a number of projects aimed at finding long-term solutions to problems of animal cruelty, including the rescue of 10,000 Moon Bears from cruel bile farms in China and Vietnam.

AAF’s Moon Bear Rescue project involves rescuing suffering and endangered Asiatic black bears from cruel bile farms in China and bringing them to its sanctuary in Chengdu, Sichuan province. The bears (known as Moon Bears because of the golden crescents on their chests) can spend up to 20 years in coffin-sized cages where they are milked daily for their bile, often through crude, filthy catheters. They are also milked through permanently open holes in their abdomens. This is the so-called “humane” free-dripping technique. It is the only legal method of bile extraction in China, but still causes constant pain and the slow death of the bears.

The bile is used in traditional Chinese medicine, even though cheap and effective herbal and synthetic alternatives are readily available.

The ambitious bear rescue project was hatched in 1993 when Animals Asia’s Founder and CEO, Jill Robinson, a Briton working in animal welfare in Asia, walked onto a bear bile farm in China. “It was a torture chamber, a hell hole for animals. They literally couldn’t move, they couldn’t stand up, they couldn’t turn around,” she says.

In July 2000 after years of lobbying and negotiating, Robinson signed a landmark agreement with the Chinese authorities to rescue 500 Moon Bears and work towards ending the barbaric practice of bear bile farming. To date, more than 240 farmed Moon Bears have been rescued and brought to AAF’s Moon Bear Rescue Centre. The farmers are compensated financially so they can either retire or set up in another business. Their licences are taken away permanently.

Animals Asia has also signed an agreement with the Vietnamese authorities to rescue 200 bears there and is currently completing construction of a sanctuary near Hanoi.

The foundation is working towards an eventual ban on bear farming throughout Asia.

1800 666 004

PO Box 275, Blackwood SA Blackwood, All Australia 5051 Australia

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