Bear With Me – Please Vote for Animals Asia

My friend Morgan (my wife’s college buddy) has also been a huge animal lover. In her California home, she’s pretty much running her own animal shelter with a dog and probably 19 cats at this point (give or take a dozen or so). She currently works for Animals Asia, an organization I had never even heard of before and one that I honestly hopes puts itself out of business.

The organization spearheads a number of wonderful initiatives, the top one being to crack down on China’s bear farming. Yes, you read that correctly. Bear farming. Hundreds of Moon Bears suffer at the hands of cruel farmers keeping them locked up in ridiculously small cages as they continuously extract bile from the bears. Put simply, it’s a barbaric practice. Animals Asia works tirelessly to free these animals and gives them sanctuary so they can live out their lives in peace.

At present, we have around 250 rescued bears at our sanctuaries in China and Vietnam and over the years, we’ve rescued a total of 350 bears. In China, we’re working with conservation leaders in Beijing as well as forestry leaders in individual provinces to close down farms and make whole provinces bear-farm free. So far, we’ve closed down 43 Chinese farms and seen 20 of mainland China’s 31 provinces become proudly bear farm-free. We also work to reduce the demand for bile in Asia by promoting affordable, effective and cruelty-free alternatives.

Thinking about the welfare of bears is probably the furthest thing on your mind. It certainly wasn’t tops on my list, until Morgan visited us a few months ago and told us first-hand stories about the barbaric practice of bile farming. It’s torture, plain and simple. She also showed us a number of videos where we saw the bear sanctuaries up close. These creatures really are majestic gentle giants and deserve far better than being stuffed in cages 100 times too small, as their bodies are brutally worn down and beaten.

Animals Asia has recently been nominated to earn a grant of up to $250,000 from Chase Community Giving! Grants are based on votes, so I’m trying to help Morgan, Animals Asia, and all the adorable Moon Bears win. If you could take a quick minute to Vote for Animals Asia, it’d be so appreciated! And if you spread the word to help them get even more votes, well, that’d just put Morgan and company over the moon.

 Vote for Animals Asia Foundation Limited

 Visit AnimalsAsia.org for more information

10 thoughts on “Bear With Me – Please Vote for Animals Asia”

  1. I find it really sad that humans can treat other living creatures this way, as if they have no feelings and are unable to feel pain. It is sad and disgusting, I’m going to vote and share, thanks for bringing this to our attention Andrew!

    • I agree completely, Henrietta. As advanced as we’ve gotten technologically (We put a man on the moon!), it still blows my mind that human beings can treat another creature this way.

  2. Things like this really are heartbreaking. This sort of thing really needs to come to an end. Just no reason for it anymore with all the medical advancements we’ve made in the last 50 years.

    • Exactly. And in this case, it’s just super cruel and inhumane what they’re doing to these poor creatures. Just for bile, which is completely unnecessary.

    • Hey, Kathy. Yeah, it really really is awful. They use their bile in all sorts of traditional medicines over there, even though there’s plenty of alternatives available.

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