A bear which spent its entire life captive in a a case has been rescued by campaigners.
Sun bear Annemarie was kept in dungeon-like conditions in a windowless room in a small village in Nam Dinh province, north eastern Vietnam.
But following the death of of the seven-year-old animal’s owner, NGO Animals Asia were able to carry out a rescue. According to the charity, the owner’s son was “keen to do the right thing and voluntarily hand over the bear” after he discovered the animals legally had to be registered.
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The room where Annemarie was kept caged (Animals Asia/Flickr )
A team of volunteers visited the property Annemarie was being held at a nd used bolt cutters before removing her on to a make-shift stretcher and taking her to the Animals Asia sanctuary, north of Hanoi.
Bolt cutters are used to free Annemarie
Bear manager Louise Ellis said: “After arriving, Annemarie was still very frightened and wary of people around her.
“Eventually she began to relax a little and was given a cooling shower with the hose pipe to help revive her after the journey. She soon began to enjoy the spray, pawing at the water and sitting up so her belly could get wet.
“She appears to like watermelon and kept going back to the food bowl to take a piece. She was left to settle overnight. She is still very scared but hopefully with time and TLC she will begin to relax a bit more and settle into her new life here.”
Rescue workers prepare Annemarie for transportation (Animals Asia/Flickr )
Tuan Bendixsen, Animals Asia’s Vietnam Director, said: “At seven years old this is still a young bear and one that can enjoy a full life in the future. However, there is always a physical price to pay for these bears when they have suffered a lack of space, poor diet and inexpert care.”
Annemarie will now be kept in quarantine for 45 days, during which time she will undergo any necessary medical procedures. Ultrasound scans revealed Annemarie suffered from some joint damage – as might be expected from her former living conditions – but it is not believed bile was extracted from her.
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9/9 Zoos
The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there’s nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further.
EPA
1/9 Monkey shows
Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress.
Getty
2/9 Marine parks
Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food – many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they’re held in captivity.
Getty
3/9 Tiger shows
Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them “safe” for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction.
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4/9 Donkey rides
Sunning on the beach is great for humans – we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it’s pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times.
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5/9 Swimming with dolphins
Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world.
Getty
6/9 Canned hunting
Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a “hunting” enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving.
Getty
7/9 Running of the Bulls
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Getty
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Getty
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EPA
In some south east Asia countries, and particularly in China, bears are often farmed for their bile, which is used as a traditional medicine. It is used to ‘treat’ sore throats, sores, haemorrhoids, sprains, bruising, muscle ailments, epilepsy and to ‘clear’ the liver, according to a report by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network.
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Animals Asia said of the practice: “The bile, which is stored in the gall bladder, is collected by means of various extraction methods, all of which cause massive infections in the bears.
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“Most farmed bears are starved, dehydrated and suffering from multiple diseases and malignant tumours that not only contaminate their bile but ultimately kill them. Very few receive appropriate medication or any type of veterinary care.
“Animals Asia has also seen instances of old or very sick bears – those who fail to produce bile – simply left to starve to death in their cages.
“Pathology reports have shown that bile from sick bears is often contaminated with, blood, pus, faeces, urine, bacteria and cancer cells.”
