We’ll all miss her – she had a temper on her that would make bears and people jump in surprise – opinionated, stubborn, but with a gentle and affectionate side too.
One of the elderly matriarchs of the enclosure, this larger than life bear, who the rescue centre staff nicknamed “Gail”, made us smile for reasons we’re not really sure of.
Papermoon passed away late on Wednesday night after a battle well fought. I’m in Spain now and it was the saddest of calls to hear Heather at midnight (her time in China) saying there was nothing more that she and the team could do. These amazing girls had, once again, sat with a bear through several nights checking her, reassuring her, doing everything they could.
Papermoon, sponsored by a lovely lady in Germany, was such a fighter. She was one of the first group of three bears we received on a cold night of October 2000 – in a crush cage just behind Andrew and Melody. Beside herself with rage and fear, she convulsed almost incessantly from the time she arrived.
Her body was such a mess. Badly arthritic, teeth and paw tips hacked away, a horrible latex catheter that protruded from her abdomen and then snaked under her skin and exited at the hip – with all the underlying infection you’d expect. As if that wasn’t enough she had a huge dinner-plate-sized burn on her back – festering, weeping and obviously terribly painful.
Although the surgery went well, Papermoon’s temper and convulsing didn’t improve in all the time she was in the recovery cage. It was only when she was put into a den – with Heather, Crystal and Joy that she started behaving like a bear.
Since then, these four “girls” remained together – clustered around in a tight little group, “gossiping” for hours on end and earning the most appropriate name of “the knitting circle”. Woe betide any silly young male who sauntered too close – they were taking no nonsense and would all open wide mouths of warning, which would see the boldest male scuttling back into the safety of his own den.
The group lost Joy from liver cancer in 2004 and will be all the quieter now for the loss of “Gail”.
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I know many of you will be anxious to know how our five sick bears are getting on, so here’s an update from our Senior vet, Heather. And it’s mostly good news!
We are waiting to make sure they're all on the road to recovery before we start naming them with the official names chosen by sponsors on the waiting list. Meanwhile, we've given them all nicknames.
Here are Heather's notes:
"Rasta" has recovered well from coughing/diarrhoea, has very sore eyes and awful teeth so was anaesthetised on Tuesday for a dental. We extracted all four of her canine teeth and one molar tooth. All were rotten and she had extensive infection in her jaw bones. She also had ulcers on both of her corneas, which were treated. She is currently on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories.
"Suki" has recovered well, but is a little constipated this week as she’s developed a fondness for dog-food sachets while she was sick. We’re gradually weaning her back onto bear food. She over-grooms her hair (a learned behaviour due to boredom on the farm) and has extensive hair-loss, but the hair is slowly growing back as she plays with her enrichment [toys] more.
"Sarah" has no more coughing or diarrhoea, and looks really well
"Eeyore" is refusing to eat her vegetables, but eats everything else and is very bright and well and active. She looks good, no coughing or diarrhoea.
"Flipper" has no problems; he has recovered well.
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I’ve just landed in Barcelona for presentations here in Spain – tired and happy after meeting old and new friends in Germany and Austria. The roadshow there went so wonderfully well thanks to the hard work and slog by our amazing team in Munich – so efficiently aided by our dedicated volunteers and supporters at the various events. Christa, Christine and Chee-Meng worked their socks off to make sure everything ran smoothly – and the week went by in a flash.
Christie, our China Relations Director, came with me and was able to speak first-hand of the challenges faced by animals and people in her country. She was delighted to meet our supporters face to face and I think they were even more delighted to meet her after hearing about the programmes initiated by her team for making the world a better place for dogs and cats in China.
Heart-warming welcomes came from audiences everywhere. In Cologne, we were privileged to meet Heinz Wiescher from ETN – a group that has been so incredibly generous over the years and has sponsored a whole bear house for our sanctuary in Chengdu. Most of the bears in House 6 are disabled – missing paws, teeth, claws and eyes – but you would never know it watching this group of little delinquents loving (and destroying) their carefully constructed play platforms in the enclosure.
It was wonderful to meet our friend Christiane von Schwind – a TV producer on WDR who many years ago sparked interest for our bears in Germany with her touching stories and gained us many new and loyal supporters. I believe that the story will be shown in the next few weeks on Tiere suchen ein Zuhause – so if you’re able to pick up German TV, please keep your eyes peeled for that!
On to Hildesheim, where our long-term and passionate supporter, Danielle Sofie, jumped out of a light aircraft – in a bear suit. She has done this many times in the past, but watching her fall many metres from the sky certainly saw hearts in mouths and a collective sigh of relief from the audience as she landed safely on solid ground.
Heinz Habenicht and Manfred Herzog gave her a helping hand and proved once more that supporters of AAF are great at teamwork whenever it’s needed!
Next it was on to Salzburg – and what an event that was. The location was Gut Aiderbichl – the most magnificent rescue centre for all sorts of domesticated animals rescued from farms and slaughterhouses in Austria. It was truly a place of peace and tranquillity with horses, pigs, sheep, cows, chickens and goats – plus a few unruly dogs and cats – all living together harmoniously. The founder of this peaceful haven is Michael Aufhausser (below), who is famous across Europe for not only rescuing so many individual animals, but causing every visitor to reflect on how our smallest steps can change a world of cruelty for farm animals today.
Lots of animal lovers had come to Aiderbichl, most of them Austrians, to learn more about the plight of the moon bears and at the end of my presentation another surprise was waiting – the Committee of Gut Aiderbichl devoted a special prize for animal welfare each year and this year it was my great honour receive it – naturally on behalf of Jasper and our other four-legged friends many thousands of miles away!
During that day and a half, we were pleased to see presenter Maggie Entenfeller and her film crew from Austrian TV ORF on site and once again devoting so much filming time to our Asian animal projects in a programme that will go out in Germany later in May.
Another surprise was to meet some of our lovely Luxembourg supporters at Gut Aiderbichl – including Anita and René Claus, who helped us out with some amazing pictures (René is standing with me below).
The next day we were hot-footing it to the Chinese Embassy in Berlin, where we met with Chinese Ambassador Ma Carong and his staff. The meeting had been organised by long-time supporter and friend Frau Alexandra Oetker, who sponsors no less than three bears in Chengdu. Frau Oetker arrived for coffee that morning with her two gorgeous rescued dogs in tow – a lovely start to the day having a little animal therapy before we all rushed off to the Embassy.
Mr Ma Carong was attentive and thoughtful at our meeting, during which we passed over just a few of the 55,000 petitions signed by people in Germany respectfully asking that China accelerate the rescue of farmed bears and close the industry down.
Christie and I also handed over the horrific new pictures of bears just received – including the 11 that had died from liver cancer – and were pleased to hear Mr Ma promising to forward our evidence and concerns to high-level departments in Beijing.
Finally we hopped on a plane for our last event in Munich and our meeting with the marvellous Barbara Rütting – a Green MP, actress and author of 18 vegetarian books. I hope she won’t mind me mentioning that she is 80 years old – a walking advert for a healthy diet and beautiful of face and heart. (Barbara is the lady in pink above and below.)
Barbara has helped us so much in political platforms for the bears and it was lovely for us all to just sit down at the end of the event, share some pasta with this passionate, articulate woman, and just relax.
Also at the dinner we were delighted to meet with Sandra and Roland Schwarzl. Roland is an Austrian athlete who is taking part in the Beijing Olympic Games this coming August – complete with Animals Asia T-shirt!
The Munich event itself – with such wonderful supporters, more tears for the bears and smiles of hope as projects were outlined to help them – rounded off a perfect roadshow.
All of the events over the past week were filled with friends who have been so dedicated over the years – and we need to thank you all – each and every one of you, for the faith and help you so selflessly offer to bears, dogs and cats so many thousands of miles away in the midst of your own busy lives. Thank you from us all – we had the best of times and can’t wait to return again.
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Looking back over the past few weeks, it all seems a bit surreal. We’ve waited so long and worked so hard to free more bears and now 11 of them are dead. Some of these poor souls were at deaths door, but others would most probably have lived on for many months in unrelenting agony, so at least we were able to save them from that.
It’s been hard on us all and the tragedy of the spring 2008 rescue will haunt us for years to come – but we still have 17 survivors and they represent the future.
I chose these three photos to show you, as I think they sum up how we’re all feeling right now. The first of Toby our General Manager (on the left) and Rainbow, our PR and Education Manager, just before the funeral of three of the bears we lost.
Seeing their bodies lying on grass, it was even more poignant that these bears had never been able to experience this simple pleasure when alive. Toby and Rainbow’s faces say it all.
The next two are of Chen, one of our lovely, patient bear workers, whose kindness is gradually winning over the new arrivals.
Here, she is pictured preparing food and feeding Watermelon, our bear of hope. As I’ve mentioned before, we fear this beautiful boy may have been robbed of his natural intelligence by the brutal treatment he received on the farm.
But Chen and the other hands-on Chinese staff will be by his side day in and day out for as long as it takes for this big, gentle bear to recover enough to be released into a semi-natural enclosure.
Brave Watermelon and the 16 other survivors couldn’t be in better hands. From now on, they will know only kindness. Here’s what Chen said when asked how she felt about the new arrivals:
“I was very sad on the day these new bears arrived. They were kept in such tiny cages. I am happy to see them moved to bigger cages after their health-checks. It takes about 10 days before we see their friendly eyes. It’s so pleasant to see they become so playful when we put in the branches and all the different toys. What a reward to see these changes. I hope all the farmed bears can recover very soon.”
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We’ve received a number of queries as to why we can’t release the rescued bears straight away and why we have to keep them in recovery cages. Please let me explain.
I wish these poor bears could run free on the grass as soon as they arrive at the rescue centre, but sadly, the reality is that they are simply too sick, even the ones that are not on our “worry list”.
These bears have been kept in tiny, coffin-sized cages, some of them for many years. They have been used as machines, unable to walk or even to turn around and starved of nutrition and even water.
Most are severely traumatised, just lying flat on the bottom of their cages with atrophied muscles and dehydrated bodies. Many of them also have arthritis and a number of other ailments and they need constant monitoring from the vet team.
Watermelon (pictured here) for instance, still has a long way to go before he can enjoy his freedom fully - but we'll make sure he's as happy and comfortable as possible until he's fit enough to venture out into the world. Incidentally, the blue tube in his recovery cage is filled with food, most recently "stinky tofu", which the bears love! It takes them ages to lick and paw the goodies out of the tube, keeping their minds active and their bodies exercised.
The rehabilitation process is necessarily a slow one. These bears need time to adjust to space around them, to learn to stand, walk and build “nests” with straw and green browse – and to learn to trust our caring staff and new people around them, so far removed from their lives on the farms. For our part, we also need to understand them, to monitor their diets, to make sure they are eating enough and to understand their problems and preferences too.
Once the emergency health-checks are finished, the vet team will surgically remove each of the bears’ gall bladders, which are horribly damaged from the bile extraction process, repair or remove broken and shattered teeth from years of bar-biting or deliberate cutting-back by the farmers. Their eyes are checked, claws are clipped, their ears are tagged for identification, blood taken for analysis, and bodies checked again for signs of further wounds and scarring possibly missed in the original health-checks. After this surgery, the vet team will monitor the bears again in their recovery cages as their surgical wounds dry and heal.
The time spent in recovery cages varies according the scale of the injuries and complications and availability of new dens. Even then, moving them into a rehab area does not always go smoothly! In their natural state, moon bears are solitary animals, so they don’t always take kindly to the presence of other bears. Like humans, they get along fine with some of their fellow residents and not others.
It’s a process of trial and error, but eventually we will place all of the bears in a semi-natural enclosure where they will be happy and able to spend their days swimming, enjoying their swings, play-wrestling and climbing to their hearts’ content.
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