Sometimes, however, we take the opportunity, simply, to have fun! And fun was what it was all about recently when my sister Anne, her husband Steve, and their daughter Nicole came out to see us in Chengdu and meet the team.
With a sleeping Banjo on the surgery table for a dental, our vet team dug out a little scrub top and surgical gloves for 11-year-old Nicole to wear and invited her to help them with a health-check.
Carefully following instructions from vet nurse Hayley, Nicole injected Banjo with antibiotics and painkillers.
She also took his temperature – never once blinking an eye as she quickly realised that the thermometer wasn’t actually to be placed in his mouth!
High on the priority list was taking Banjo’s paw-prints with non-toxic paint – these prints help us raise much-needed funds during roadshows and other events.
Usually, lemon paint and black card are used (ie, the colours of the black bears and their yellow crescent moons), but Hayley remembered that Nicole loved pink, and so red and white paint was mixed together to make a lovely shade of baby pink!
Here's a lovely pic of Nicole and Anne and one of Nicole getting to know cheeky Jasper:
It was lucky that Banjo’s friends weren’t around to see his paw painted with such a girlie colour, but the final result was gorgeous. Health-check and paw painting complete, Banjo was duly woken up in his recovery cage to be spoiled rotten over the next couple of days after three broken canines were removed.
Just before moving his cage into the hospital ward, someone shouted, “Snake!” and we all jumped in surprise as a decent-sized snake slithered along the corridor floor.
Luckily Bear Team Supervisor Rocky was on hand to scoop it up and release it safely into the forest.
The night before all this excitement had been our party on site to celebrate Animals Asia’s 11th Anniversary on August 8th. Ever-creative, Rainbow took the opportunity of taking a pic with the whole team standing in the courtyard and forming the number “11”.
The fun and games continued Chengdu-style well into the evening, with some "Olympian" efforts from the team!
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As you know, from the start of this month to the end of September, supporters around the world are holding Honey Money Days to help us raise money for the rescued bears.
I’ve just heard about one very special event that will long be remembered in the picturesque town of Burgdorf in Emmental, Switzerland.
Our lovely Swiss supporter, Andrea Kilcher (above) who visited our Chengdu sanctuary in 2007, recently married her handsome beau, Beat Friedli – and a close friend of Andrea surprised the bride and groom with a wonderful idea that made their special day even more special – by including the moon bears!
Andrea’s friend printed “dollar” notes with a picture of a bear on one side and a picture of Andrea and Beat on the other, and sold them off to their delighted wedding guests, who were more than happy to join in the fun. The notes were inscribed with the words: “We have a heart for bears” and the date of their wedding.
The lovely wedding guests raised a total of 700 Swiss francs, which was gratefully (and tearfully) accepted by Andrea to pass on to the bears who mean so much to her. This money will go towards our Honey Money Days project – building a new bear house in Chengdu.
Andrea and Beat, and all you lovely people who were guests at their wedding, thank you so much for this truly kind gesture – and all the very best for a long and happy life together from the whole team at Animals Asia (especially our bears in Chengdu!)
PS: If you’d like to hold your own event to help us build a new house for our China bears, it’s not too late! If you haven’t yet organised your own Honey Money Day fundraiser, please take a look here www.animalsasia.org/honeymoneydays or contact you local Animals Asia office if you’d like more information.
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Despite their terrible pasts, our rescued bears are generally just so good at leaving the bad times behind. One of the things I love about them is, simply, that they make you smile.
David and Lamma are a case in point – two gorgeous little sun bears belonging to what is often known as a feisty species – and quite challenging to manage. But no, these two bears are trouble-free.
When I was with them recently, I beamed from ear to ear, as they embraced everything about their new lives, tumbling around and exhausting each other with play. Belinda our Senior Bear Manager also captured a gorgeous moment they had a few days before and no words are necessary as she had been lucky enough to have her camera with her at the time.
So, just for you, here’s David (left) and Lamma enjoying one of those perfect moments of bliss:
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Visiting our Vietnam rescue centre in Tam Dao this week, I couldn’t wait to get around and see all the bears. And, in return, adorable cubs Maggie, Angus and little Taurus couldn’t wait to show me what mischievous little delinquents they’d grown into today.
Our poor bear team works tirelessly to create a world of fun and exploration in the form of novel toys, paddling pools, boxes full of sawdust, climbing ladders and tyres – only to see all their efforts trashed in about 10 seconds once the doors open into the cubs’ playroom.
With toys lying beaten and broken, the cubs turn to each other for more boisterous enrichment and test their strength with all the force of competing sumo wrestlers.
Angus has proven to be a tolerant playmate for Taurus and will hold back on biting down too hard, while his sister Maggie obviously thinks that all this rough play is beneath her and quietly amuses herself with the remnants of the toys or by splashing happily in her pool.
Like everyone in the team, Belinda, our Senior Bear Manager, obviously adores them all and, although we don’t have favourites (much), she seems particularly close to Taurus the terror (whose unruly behaviour, I should point out, is no reflection on his kind sponsors, Jo Politis and Richard Collins from Adelaide, Australia!)
Here are some pics of this adorable little guy - being handed over to vet Leanne on May 5th by the forest protection authorities, who we were thrilled to see had provided good care for Taurus since his confiscation.
... and once settled in at the rescue centre:
Over the past few weeks, “little” Taurus has surprised everyone with how much he’s grown – from his original weigh-in at 2kgs when rescued, to the healthy and very robust 18+kgs he is today.
Belinda, who has managed wild animals for nearly 20 years, has been enjoying some last bear hugs before Taurus says goodbye to his tactile infant life and enters a new “hands-off” stage of his development.
Because he was stolen from his mother as a tiny cub, (she was most likely killed by poachers), he has needed the touch and warmth of some surrogate loving arms – and Belinda has been more than happy to provide hers!
As she explains, “We have continued to give Taurus some special attention because even though he has two new friends that he loves very much, he still looks at us as mom, so we wanted to take ourselves out of the picture slowly.”
Now though, he is old enough – and certainly big enough – to move on to the next stage of his development. Belinda and the vet team agree that one day over the next week or so, tactile contact with his carers, which has been essential for his development up until now, will cease.
He’ll be moved into a den full of enrichment items – challenging toys to keep him busy for hours, tubs filled with water or sawdust, ropes to swing from and ladders to climb – it will be a bit like his first day at school!
Here, Taurus will spend his days playing with Maggie and Angus through their interlinking dens.
More soon on other bears in Vietnam, including David and Lamma, our two gorgeous sun bears, who have eyes for no one but each other.
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Little Kaya has to be one of the luckiest dogs on the planet. Senior Bear Manager Nic remembers the tiny, skeletal puppy that arrived with us on site at the bear sanctuary in Chengdu after she was picked up from the street.
She cried her heart out all night until Bear Manager Pernille took up motherly duties and brought her to her room to socialise her with people. She became best friends with one of our resident cats – black Tat Tat – and indeed loves all cats.
In September 2008, Kirvil Skinnarland came back again to see us in Chengdu. Kirvil has been nothing short of marvellous in generously steering Animals Asia through a strategic planning process and was on site to advise the team on putting some of those plans together.
It was love at first sight for her and for Kaya and, after asking Pernille if she could care for her for a few days in her room, the decision was made by Kirvil to take Kaya back to live with her in the US – and so Kaya became an official resident of Washington State on the first of May.
In her words: "Someone recently asked me (a question I have been expecting), why did you bring a dog from China when there are dogs who need homes here? While that is true, in my view, a dog who needs a home is the same whether she is here or somewhere else in the world. To me, a comment like that is like saying, why do you give money to help starving children in Africa, when there are still children going hungry in the US?
At least a homeless dog in North America will have a home and reasonable care in a shelter while waiting for adoption, and if not adopted, then he or she will have a humane death.
In the many Asian countries with street dogs, there are few, if any, shelters, and of the few shelters that exist, many cannot provide even basic humane care for the dogs they have. The street dogs face starvation, disease, cruelty, and in China, a long agonising trip to the live animal markets where they are beaten to death.
Kaya is just as affectionate, sensitive, intelligent and loyal as any “American” or “Canadian” dog I have owned before. She, and the millions like her in China and elsewhere in the world, deserve better.
And without any quarantine requirements in the US or Canada, bringing a “Chinese mongrel” (the breed specified in her papers) home is a relatively easy matter. "
The pictures say it all – above, Kaya as a tiny pup, and now safe and sound in Kirvil’s arms. The latest pictures of Kirvil and Kaya were taken beside beautiful Lake Wenatchee, which is fed by glaciers in Washington State’s Cascade Mountains and is really cold.
Kirvil says, “Kaya likes the water and I’m going to see if she will swim with me when the water gets a bit warmer. She is the sweetest animal and a perfect companion. She is so good-natured and gentle. She loves my cats and one of them, Max, is very fond of her”.
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