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Thursday, 21 January 2010 |
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Great news! After an arduous three days on the road, Animals Asia's rescue team has arrived at our Moon Bear Rescue Centre at Tam Dao and all 19 bears are doing well. Chinh, our Vietnam Education Officer, is recording the rescue. Please read on for his second diary entry.
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Tam Dao, 21 January, 2010: It's pouring with rain, and we're all soaked to the skin and exhausted, but spirits are high as we have arrived at our Tam Dao sanctuary and all the bears are doing well. It's now around 9pm and we're all looking forward to bed.
We left Binh Duong, almost 2,000 kilometres away in the south on Monday morning and it's been a long, slow trip along national Highway 1, with stops every two hours to check on the bears and give them water. We also had to navigate the dangerous Hai Van (Sea Clouds) mountain pass, as we weren't allowed to transport live animals through the tunnel used by most motorists.
The pass between Thua Thien-Hue Province and Danang City is 500 metres above sea-level and the roads are narrow and windy, with unexpected bends with huge drops down, which took our breath away. We did see some spectacular scenery though!
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The convoy of three trucks carrying the bears in the horrible containers and our support van arrived at the rescue centre around 3.30pm today and the crane we hired immediately began unloading the bears from the trucks. By 6.30pm all were safely down on the grass.
A couple of the bears seem a little upset by all the noise and people, but most are really calm and have been throughout the whole trip. All of them are eating really well and seem to love their fruit and fruit smoothies, which the vet team says is a great sign. And some have just eaten a proper dinner of vegetables and grain.
On the road, we stopped at roadside markets and little eateries to stock up on food for the bears – they must have been surprised when we carted away such huge quantities of apples, bananas, watermelon, cooked rice and bread!
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Our vet Kirsty and her team, who have been busy preparing for the bears'arrival at the sanctuary, have examined the bears as best they could as they are still in the cargo containers – six in two and seven in one – and tomorrow morning the team will start health-checks. One of the bears has a lump in his belly, one we think might be blind because he had to sniff out his food, and two others have problems with their tongues, so these will be some the first to be anaesthetised and taken out of the containers for health-checks.
Fortunately with all the heavy rain, it is quite cool here, so I hope the bears can sleep well in the containers overnight.
For more information, click here.
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