Both of them are profoundly talented and famous, with Richard painting the most beautiful wildlife pictures, and Suzie sculpting superbly lifelike wild and domestic species.
These two gloriously creative artists truly connect with animals in a talent rarely witnessed — and, of course, they and Doug all fell completely in love with the bears. Here's a pic of us on the roof of House 10 admiring "broken bear" Oliver (in the background) who had previously been caged for 30 years and again made us all cry:
And here are Richard and Suzie with Lucky and me in the Education Room. We're showing off all the lovely letters of support sent from children in Congleton UK:
Over the years, the generosity of these two artists towards the bears has been limitless, but they have always relied on photos and film, without actually meeting the animals they’ve been helping for so long.
And at last, here they were, walking into a world of emotional turmoil as they witnessed animals whose lives have been completely turned around. Many tears and smiles were shared as they joined our vet team in the surgery for two days of health-checks, witnessed the horrors of the catheters, the metal jackets and crush cages — and breathlessly introduced themselves to bears previously held captive for years.
The bears, now enjoying the warm summer days, took it all in their stride. Curious and confident, they walked calmly over to the fence-line and gently sniffed through the fencing, happily taking in the sights and smells of their new friends. Cameras clicked, video was taken and the week flew by before we all said sad and fond farewells.
Suzie and Richard will now be many months turning their passion and talent into something more exciting than I can ever describe, and are currently discussing major events for 2012 with Gill, Nicky and team from our UK office — in a tribute to China and Vietnam’s brave and majestic bears.
We so loved seeing you — Richard, Suzie and Doug — thank you for your love and help, and please come back again soon.
Here are four of Suzie’s amazing works — Boxing Hares, Butch ‘n’ Cassidy, and two of our rescued moon bears, Dilly and Ginny. For more of Suzie’s sculptures, please go to:
www.suziemarshsculpture.co.uk
I’ll leave you with some of Richard’s stunning portraits of animals.
| Share this article with your friends | Donate to rescue appeal now |
Bearmania has well and truly arrived in the UK, and, according to Gill and Nicky in our office there, it seems that everyone in the town of Congleton has taken the bears to their hearts. Long famous for its historical link with bears, the town just recently organised the most amazing event and proudly showed off 75 five-feet tall fibreglass bears decorated by the towns schools, businesses and services. They even included a Bear Mayor!
Nicky had given passionate presentations to several schools prior to the bear exhibition and so now of course all the students were fired up to help the caged and farmed bears in China and Vietnam. Longtime supporter and “Secret Millionaire” TV celebrity, lovely Dawn Gibbins, had been instrumental in bringing the whole town together celebrating the bear theme and encouraging donations to help the real-life bears we rescue from the farms.
Getting in on the act, was a little orange dog rescued from the earthquake in China who now resides with bear volunteer and vet nurse Judy at her home in the UK. Clearly acknowledging his growing fame, Tremor wasn’t exactly slow in positioning himself next to the Mayoral Bear for the publicity photos — much to the delight of the media who jostled to take pictures of the celeb in their midst.
Read all about this fantastic event here.
With, as ever, our heartfelt thanks to the town of Congleton and all involved for putting bears well and truly on the map, and giving some real-life bears a big dose of much-needed help.
| Share this article with your friends | Donate to rescue appeal now |
What a fabulous event just recently in Chengdu after Suki and our Cat and Dog Welfare team pulled out all the stops and launched our brand new event — “Bikers love animals”.
Launched in April with a target of 68 groups, our amazing team have beaten their own target and now have 70 groups currently cycling across 25 cities of China — AND a new target of 88 groups showing their love for animals in different ways across the country!
Riding bikes throughout various communities each biker is carrying a variety of messages AND seeing a ripple effect of more people joining and signing pledges to help animals.
Each rider bikes for 88km, stops at eight focal areas, gives out leaflets and gets 888 signatures and pledges at each place — with the main theme “caring for animals starts with me”! The pledges cover such themes as:
•We promise not to eat dogs and cats — they are our friends, not food!
•Be a responsible pet owner — and don’t abandon your cats and dogs.
•Don’t buy any bear bile products.
•Don’t hurt animals and if you see someone harming them — stop them!
•Please try to help stray animals and join or help local animal-welfare groups.
•Send out animal-protection information far and wide through the Internet, public forums, in schools, universities, and through any medium, which will help the animals of China.
Seeing the bikers off on the start of their ride in Chengdu on Sunday May 15th, I asked them to promote what everyone can do to help animals in their everyday lives. To plead with all those they meet not to buy “live trinkets”, which are a cruel fad of turtles and fish in plastic bags being sold as key-rings! Don’t buy ivory, don’t use TCM with wild-animal products containing rhino horn, tiger bone and bear bile! Don’t wear fur! Go veggie for one or two days a week — or for life — you will be healthier if you do and so will the environment and your wallet!
At the end of this event we expect to reach at least 120,000 people — but of course many, many more through the media and Twitter, QQ, etc. A ripple effect, a solid programme driven by passion to help the environment in China, and the animals that share our world.
Thank you especially to Suki, Cherry, Jing Jing, Irene, Carrot, Gina and Jessica and all in our Cat and Dog Welfare team for carrying out this amazing nationwide event. Thank you too to so many staff in Chengdu and Hong Kong who provided such an incredible back-up for this campaign — the organisation has been phenomenal and you should all be very proud.
And thank you to everyone who has joined this fantastic campaign for being such an inspiration and for creating a better life for the animals. Please bike carefully and know that what you are doing is truly making a difference for the animals of China. Caring for animals starts from you — and they are so, so lucky to have you on their side.
| Share this article with your friends | Donate to rescue appeal now |
Tuan, our Vietnam Director, sent the most wonderful update recently of a visit by a group of Buddhist monks to our rescue centre in Tam Dao. It brought me back to April 2010 when Buddhist monks visited our centre in Chengdu, China and blessed our newly rescued bears and sanctuary, leaving a veil of calm and tranquility throughout. Tuan’s words below are particularly touching, showing a profound example of the growing number of people who will not tolerate the ugly truth of bear farming in Asia today.
On 8th May 2011, 40 Buddhist monks of the Phu Nghi and Thien An Temple in Tay Thien Mountain (approximately 20km from our sanctuary), came to bless our bears. Accompanying the monks were 30 Buddhist volunteers from Hanoi who came to help the temple with odd jobs. The monks heard about the sanctuary and contacted us through the [Tam Dao National] Park and subsequently, they came at our invitation. On the day, the monks performed a peace and healing ceremony for bears that have suffered so much and a ceremony to appease the surrounding spirits so that our sanctuary is protected against bad elements. Before the ceremony, the head monk spoke of how we should all help to protect bears and wildlife, especially referring to the young generation who can lead the change for the better. The ceremonies lasted for over an hour, following which the monks went to the double bear house and blessed all the bears.
I told the monks about the bear bile farming situation in Vietnam and they were astonished to hear of the suffering that our bears had endured. The head monk said that the temples will do all they can to help us - and that they would work with us to spread the message to protect the bears, and not exploit them for commercial gain. Overall it was a very good visit even though it was a hot day for performing an outdoor ceremony. When the monks left, I can feel there is a lingering atmosphere of hope, calm and contentment.
| Share this article with your friends | Donate to rescue appeal now |
It’s been a long time coming, but well worth the wait. An impressive and explosive new report by TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring network) reveals a trade out of control with the message: “Illegal bear bile trade rampant in Asia”.
This long-awaited report, “Pills, Vials, Powders and Flakes: The bear bile trade in Asia”, offers positive proof that “the poaching and illegal trade of bears, driven largely by the demand for bile used in traditional medicine and folk remedies, continues unabated across Asia on a large scale.”
Helped by some generous friends across the world, Animals Asia was able to direct funds to this ground-breaking initiative and contributed important information in respect of China and Vietnam.
Today the report exposes a “complex and robust trade in bear products” with “mainland China the most commonly reported place of origin for these products across the region”.
Thirteen places were surveyed, plus several bear farms in Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. All traditional medicine (TM) shops in all places, except Macau, had bear bile for sale. All places except mainland China and Taiwan had significant amounts of bear bile sourced internationally. China was the largest producer, with seven countries selling significant amounts of products originating from there.
TRAFFIC made the point that any country (apart from Korea) with farms was both a producer and consumer of bear bile and so concluded that bear farms failed to fulfil any kind of conservation role, as pressures on wild populations and a steady demand for bear bile persist in Asia. Many of the products were wild sourced, again refuting the efficacy of bear farming practices as a conservation measure that alleviates pressure on wild populations by providing farmed bile.
There were some surprises too when the paper stated that Hong Kong’s bile was reported to be from Japan, and bile found in Korea was reported to be from the wild in Russia. So while the shops in Korea are apparently not selling bear bile from China and Vietnam, we do know that the Chinese and Vietnamese farms themselves are doing a roaring trade from Korean tourists who are smuggling bile back into the country illegally.
One major concern for TRAFFIC is the expanding trade and number of bear farms in Laos and Myanmar (ex Burma), and naturally this is on our radar too. TRAFFIC found 102 bears on four farms in Laos (98 moon bears and four sun bears) and consequently some urgent intervention and enforcement is required to plug this emerging source of bile.
Japan, interestingly, saw four bear parks visited, with the park spokespeople all saying they incinerated their bears when they died. Only one park admitted selling bile products, which they said originated from wild bears. Sadly, the laws in Japan allow hunting of wild bears as dangerous animals......
Clearly then, CITES regulations are being ignored and national regulations are unenforced as raw bile, bile products, gall bladders and live bears are commonly traded across international boarders. TRAFFIC’s recommendations were that markets selling illegal bear products should be closed down, and greater enforcement was needed throughout Asia.
They also recommended that the Association of South East Asian Nations Wildlife enforcement Network (ASEANWEN) and partner members of the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), which consists of CITES Secretariat, Interpol, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Customs Organisation and the World Bank, join together as a united force against the trade.
TRAFFIC emphasised that enforcement and seizure information needed to be shared, and illegal bear farms should be closed. We would go one step further by suggesting that ALL farms must urgently be investigated in both China and Vietnam, in order that the inevitable illegal practices are exposed and the farms finally closed down.
And, sensibly, TRAFFIC is recommending various education campaigns by NGOs to raise awareness and encourage the local community to help protect bears. This would include hotlines so that the public can be encouraged to report illegal hunting and trading of bears.
Again, one of the major conclusions to be drawn from the report was that Chinese bear farmers are clearly circumventing the regulations and exporting bear bile illegally, in an industry that is out of control. As China is reported to be the most common place of origin for bear bile products across the region, we encourage the authorities to end the gross exploitation of the country’s endangered and charismatic bears by a few greedy opportunists, who are hindering conservation and welfare efforts.
See our full story here.
| Share this article with your friends | Donate to rescue appeal now |
Next Previous
