Animals Asia

For just over a year we have been supporting an animal charity called Animals Asia by collecting money here at the zoo.

Animals Asia is a Hong Kong based charity who are devoted to the needs of wild, domesticated and endangered species throughout the Asian continent. One of their campaigns is called the 'moon bear rescue'. In countries across Asia, thousands of bears live a life of torture on bear farms, so that bile can be extracted and used in traditional medicine to cure ailments ranging from headache's to haemorrhoid's. Bears are confined in cages which vary from agonisingly tiny crush cages to larger pens, all of which cause terrible physical and mental suffering.

Animals Asia go to these farms and document what is happening and try to get these farms shut down. The bears are then taken to their rehabilitation centre where they begin the long journey of getting better. Some never make it as they are too ill and are put down, but the staff at the centre do their best and alot grow healthier by the day and spend the rest of their lives at the Animals Asia Sanctuary. These bears could never be released into the wild again as they have had too much human contact and some are missing limbs.

We chose this charity as although we don't have Asiatic black bears at the zoo we do have European brown bears and thought it would be a worthy cause. Unfortunately on Friday we came to empty our Animals Asia collection pot which is situated by our bears and found that someone had stolen it. This upset the staff alot, as we have so far raised nearly £1500 for Animals Asia, and were hoping that we would increase the amount over the summer holiday.

Anyone with any information about the theft should contact Dartmoor Zoo.