Digital Life

C10 Monday, July 31, 2017 Inside DIGITAL LIFE Ladies of the Lake Finger of fate Beneath Surface Campion sends Wearable could A look inside Kidman and cast change the way Microsoft’s on a dark voyage we use phones latest laptop >TELEVISION C9 >START-UPS C8 > R E V I E W C 8 CUB SCOUTS To bolster its fight against the bile trade, Free the Bears is building a down the bear trade. It is building small hut with rattan mat walls. a new sanctuary on 24 hectares Wafts of burning incense hung in sanctuary in northern Laos for rescued animals, writes Tibor Krausz of rolling fields and woods, the muggy air. Leading the surrounded by towering cloud- gathering in a chant was a topped peaks, a 30-minute drive medicine man who wanted to wo Asiatic black black bears, popularly known as conditions. Kept in tiny “crush from Luang Prabang. placate the spirits that he bear cubs, “moon bears” because of the cages” that constrict freedom of The NGO started work in believed had stricken a mother barely a few white crescent-shaped marking movement, they’re fed scraps Laos in 2003 with three cubs and her young daughter with weeks old, were on their chest. They’ve all been and gruel, a diet that makes them confiscated from the wildlife malarial fever. recently put up rescued from the exotic pet trade sickly and emaciated. Their bile is trade. Two of them still live at its Despite his efforts, days later for sale in the or from bear farms around Laos. “milked” regularly, which causes sanctuary. the mother and her daughter former Laotian Had they not been rescued, them pain and trauma. “The situation back then was were still ill. What was needed to capital, Luang the sisters would probably The Laotian government has very grim for bears,” Hunt says. cure them, some villagers said, Prabang. The twins had been have wound up in some wealthy pledged to close down such “They were sold openly at was a dose of bear bile. That was Ttaken from a forest in northern family’s backyard to serve as a farms, following the example of markets. Some of them were kept beyond their meagre financial Laos where their mother was source of amusement as living Vietnam, which in July made bear in hotels and karaoke bars for means, even though the price of killed by poachers. The asking playthings. Within a year or two farming illegal and pledged to entertainment, some at farms for bear bile has been falling as a price for the tiny creatures was 15 they’d have outgrown their rescue more than 1,000 of the bile extraction, [and] some in result of overproduction at farms million Lao kip (HK$14,000) – a cubbish “cuteness” and animals estimated to be held in houses as pets.” in neighbouring China. small fortune in the impoverished probably ended up spending captivity. The Vietnamese Government officers raid a market in Laos. The charity has its work cut According to a research centre communist nation. the rest of their lives confined government also vowed to out. There are even many under the China’s state council, No payment was ever in small cages. continue cooperating with villagers living next to the new up to 20,000 bears are kept for made. Instead, following a tip-off, They might even have had NGOs, including Free the Bears Lao name means “small”, was sanctuary that still believe the such purposes. Free the Bears Fund alerted catheters inserted into their and Hong Kong-based Animals brought to Free the Bears gaunt digestive fluid of bears contains “Some of these beliefs [in the Laotian officials, who confiscated gall bladders to drain their bile, Asia, led by founder Jill Robinson. and stunted, and barely alive after magical healing properties. potency of bear bile] are centuries the animals. which is widely prized as a Animals Asia has been fighting a long spell of neglect. He’s since Some of these “I want to buy some bear old. They’re down to ignorance “We received a call and panacea in traditional Chinese for a ban on bile farming since turned into one of the largest, beliefs in the bile for my mother,” says and very hard to eradicate,” moved fast,” says Luke medicine. 1998 and runs sanctuaries in most imposing figures at the Thongdam Sysavath, 26, who Nicholson says. Nicholson, a wildlife expert at the At farms in Laos, hundreds of Vietnam and China. sanctuary, shamelessly bossing potency of bear lives in Ban Tin Pa. “I once met a villager who charity, registered in 1995 by bears languish in appalling Noy, a hulking bear whose other residents around – The small village lies right next believed that bear bile could Australian activist Mary Hutton. especially if they decide to hog his bile are centuries to the new sanctuary, which mend broken bones.” “They were the smallest cubs favourite hammock. old. They’re could be home to as many as 150 You can meet such villagers we’ve ever rescued in this Kham, another rescued bears once they are confiscated in Ban Xang Hai, also known as country,” says Nicholson, the bear, is quite a looker with down to from bile extraction businesses “the whisky village”, outside non-profit’s programme thick black fur. He loves around the country. Luang Prabang, where local manager in Laos. corn and mostly keeps ignorance and “She regularly has stomach vendors peddle rice whiskey. “They required around to himself. Damm very hard to cramps,” says Thongdam, who Inside the bottles are various the clock care.” and Kayasin are has a college degree in forestry animals and animal parts: baby The cubs were cared for inseparable sisters. eradicate and is the only villager who cobras, green snakes, giant black by staff in Free the Bears’ They enjoy snoozing speaks English. scorpions. They’re believed to gift modest offices in a townhouse on aerial platforms LUKE NICHOLSON, FREE THE BEARS He too believes in the curative curative properties to the in Luang Prabang. “They were together and lounging properties of the substance. “Bear alcoholic brew. quite a handful,” says Matt by a pool. They also bile can help her. I hope I can get Also on offer occasionally are Hunt, the organisation’s CEO, both have a sweet tooth some from them [Free the jars of “bear paw wine”, which is who helped bottle-feed them for treats. Bears],” Thongdam says, what its name suggests: every three hours. “Moon bears are big, unaware of the purpose of the fermenting rice wine with the Two months on, the two cubs, walloping lumps of cool,” sanctuary, where he recently mutilated paws of bears named Beryl and Bertha, are Hunt says. “They’re pretty applied for a job. marinating in it. living at a bear sanctuary run by chilled out.” Thongdam says he knows Asiatic black bears once the NGO just outside town. Not so for Beryl and what goes on at bear farms roamed the area’s forests, before “Beryl is definitely the Bertha, though. Bundles of but, like most hard-up locals in being seen only in cages or as naughtier one,” Hunt says. energy, the two cubs scamper Laos, he takes a utilitarian body parts. Villagers in the hills “She’s just trouble – bitey and around in their enclosures, approach: wild animals are say they haven’t seen a wild bear scratchy. She loves climbing to whimper to be fed, and nuzzle like domesticated animals in in years on their foraging trips. the top of trees and [she] stays up to newcomers curiously. The that they can be sources of food That’s probably a good thing there for ages.” rest of the time they frolic, and medicine. for the last few bears in the The two rescued cubs share gambol, wrestle, climb things, fall “I feel sorry for cubs [if they’re forests. “A bear is very valuable the premises with 41 other Asiatic down – and carry on making abused at bear farms], but older [because of its gall bladder and mischief. The pair may never bears can take it,” he says. other parts],” says a middle-aged return to the wild, but they will be One morning, about two man who lives in the hillside well cared for here. dozen people in his farming village of Xiang Mouarg. Free the Bears also operates in community huddled around a “If we saw a wild bear, some of Free the Bears CEO Matt Hunt with Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand Fermented black bear claws for meal of chicken, pork and us would go and kill it.” Asiatic black bear cub Holly. and India in its quest to shut sale at a stall in Ban Xang Hai. home-brewed rice whiskey, in a [email protected].

Load more