Campaigns › Current › Save the bears in Lao PDR!
“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity.”
— George Bernard Shaw

Help save the bears in Lao PDR!

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Typical living conditions for a bear in a bear farm - all his life.
The problem

Imagine being confined in a cage so small that you cannot stand up or even stretch your legs. You spend days on end banging your head against the bars and chewing your limbs, just to relieve the frustration of not having anything to do, anywhere to move.

Now imagine, in addition to that, a permanent open, festering wound in your abdomen that has been crudely created, through which your bile is painfully extracted daily.

The pain and anguish is unbearable…you would do anything to make it end.

This is the tragic reality for scores of bears imprisoned in bear farms in Lao PDR, drained of their bile day after day for use in traditional medicine preparations that we humans simply do not need. Bears may endure 10-15 years of this living nightmare, sometimes more.

Many of these bears have been captured from the wild, depleting already disappearing wild populations.





The solution

ACRES and Love Wildlife Foundation will be establishing the first Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre in Lao PDR. The centre will mainly house bears rescued from bear farms and the project is in partnership with the Lao Zoo.

The signing of the MOU to establish the ACRES Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre was witnessed by H.E. Dr. Thongloun Sisoulith, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Lao PDR and Mr. K Shanmugam, Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minster for Law.

As well as providing a safe sanctuary for rescued bears, the project will play a vital role in the long-term phasing out of bear farming and the wildlife trade in Lao PDR by:

  • Educating local people on the negative impacts of the wildlife trade, the cruelty of bear bile farming and the potentially harmful effects of bear bile medicine , thus making them less likely to purchase bear bile medicines and other wildlife products.

  • Establishing a new Wildlife Crime and Rescue Hotline to help combat the illegal wildlife trade. The hotline will allow people to blow the whistle on wildlife traders and buyers.

    The ACRES Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre will feature an on-site Education Centre and provide educational programmes on a variety of animal protection issues.

    A Volunteer House will also be built and will help inspire Laotions to join us in making a difference for animals.

    Your support means the world to the bears suffering in the bile farms in Lao. For more details on how to donate, please contact Communications Officer Shahida Iqubal shahida@acres.org.sg

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    Number of Animals Rescued Since August 2009: 200,000 (And Counting)
    © 2010 Animal Concerns Research and Education Society [ACRES]