Foundation Funds Bile Bear Education Programme

The Pollyanna Pickering Foundation has successfully reached our target of raising £8000.00 to fund an education programme to re-train workers from a bear bile farm in China to work as bear carers at Animals Asia sanctuaries.

Pollyanna was pleased to have the opportunity to formally present Animals Asia Founder Jill Robinson (above left) with a cheque.

Born and raised in England, Jill was always interested in the welfare of animals. As a child she volunteered at a vets during her school holidays. In the mid-1980s she moved to Hong Kong, where she began working for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, focusing on work in China and South Korea. In 1993, Jill visited a bear bile farm in China. At the time she estimates that around 10,000 Asiatic moonbears were caged in horrific conditions at farms similar to that one, where bile is extracted from the bear’s gallbladder for use in traditional Chinese medicines . From then on, Jill almost single-handedly alerted the world to the cruel practice of bear farming. For the next seven years, she researched the way bile was used and negotiated with the Chinese government. In 2000, the Sichuan Forestry Department signed a pledge with the China Wildlife Conservation Association to release 500 bears from the bile farms with the worst conditions. This marked the first time an agency of the Chinese government had come to an official agreement with any animal welfare organization. To house the released bears, Jill founded Animals Asia Foundation and established a bear rescue centre in Chengdu. The foundation has since begun a similar sanctuary in Vietnam, where there are also thousands of bear bile farms. Pollyanna first began working with Jill in 2000, helping to raise funds for the creation of the first sanctuary.

The Pollyanna Pickering Foundation is proud to announce that we have made a grant of £8000.00 to fund an education programme which forms a vital part of the largest and most ambitious rescue of bears from the unspeakably cruel bile trade ever undertaken. The bears are milked regularly for their bile, which is used in traditional medicine. Bile is extracted using various painful, invasive techniques, all of which cause massive infection in the bears. This cruel practice continues despite the availability of a large number of effective and affordable herbal and synthetic alternatives. Most farmed bears are kept in tiny cages. In China, the cages are sometimes so small that the bears are unable to turn around or stand on all fours. Some bears are put into cages as cubs and never released. Bears may be kept caged like this for up to 30 years. Most farmed bears are starved, dehydrated and suffer from multiple diseases and malignant tumours that ultimately kill them. A year ago, Animals Asia officially took on their greatest challenge – to transform a former state-owned bear bile farm in Nanning, China into a sanctuary. Despite many obstacles and frustrations that have since emerged, all 124 bears on site are already much happier and healthier than they were 12 months ago and their quality of life is far superior.

The funds provided by the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation have been used to retrain workers from the original bile farm to become skilled bear carers, at this groundbreaking facility. Five bear team members from the Animals Asia sanctuary in Chengdu rotate one month at a time in Nanning to work with the seven staff members who worked at the site when it was a breeding and extraction farm. The training of the farm workers to look after the bears to AAF standards ensured that the existing workers retained their jobs, creating a blue print for the potential transformation of other existing bile farms throughout China. The training will enable them to pass on their knowledge and skills to volunteers, their community and visitors to the centre. Pollyanna’s Foundation is committed to providing carefully targeted education programmes around the world as a major part of our work – we believe it is a vital way of ensuring the long term survival of wildlife as well as the welfare of individual animals

The Pollyanna Pickering Foundation of course continues in our support of Polly – our beautiful rescued moonbear who lives at the Tam Dao sanctuary in Vietnam. We are pleased to share the latest photo (above) sent by our friends there, showing a happy and healthy Polly enjoying a snack! A big thankyou to everyone who has helped us to fund his care for another 12 months – especially those who have signed up as a Friend of Polly Bear – we are so proud to be able to give this lovely bear a second chance at a life free of suffering.

At the beginning of 2016 the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation was able to send an additional £1750.00 to Animals Asia for the ongoing care of Polly Bear

Click here to Befriend Polly Bear

You can find out more about the work of Animals Asia at www.animalsasia.org

“Thankyou Pollyanna – We’re so indebted to you for all your support this past year – it’s been a difficult one and we’re more grateful than you can know for your kindness and help.” . Jill Robinson, Founder of Animals Asia