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All 19 bears have now had initial health-checks. Our Education Officer, Chinh, continues his account of high and lows of the rescue:
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Tam Dao, 25 January 2010: I feel very sad this morning as I start to write this update from our sanctuary. The health-checks had been going well up until yesterday afternoon, but then poor Raspberry was taken out of his cargo container.
The first thing the vet team saw was a hole in his abdomen and it was leaking pus. They quickly took Raspberry into surgery to try to save him, but that was not possible. His abdominal organs were so badly damaged by the cruel bile extraction, that the vets were very shocked by what they saw when they did the post mortem. His whole abdominal area was necrotic (rotting) and this lovely bear must have been in so much pain.
We all feel very sad, but we know that Raspberry will never feel pain again. His health-check was number 10. All the other bears have been examined by the vet team now and the vets are hopeful that they can all get better soon. Sadly, many of them have very bad teeth, which are causing them a lot of pain and one is almost blind.
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Our vet Heather and her team have been working very hard and very long hours to try to move all the bears out of their "prison cells" and into bigger recovery cages, which have lots of soft leaves in them to lie on. They are all happy in their new cages. Even the bears that were a bit shy of us, are now eagerly sitting up for their fruit smoothies.
They seem to like the straw and leaves in their cages the most of all. Some of them play with it and some of them like to roll in it. It must have been very hard for these wild animals to be kept in such unnatural conditions for so long. Before they were in the cargo containers, the farmer had kept them in very small concrete cells. They had lived in these "solitary confinement" cells for more than six years.
I can't wait to see them all outside playing on the grass and maybe they will be able to go swimming this summer, but we have to make sure they are strong and healthy first.
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Now we are preparing for Raspberry's funeral. Even though we only knew him for a day, he will be in our hearts forever and everyone wants to make his funeral very special.
For more information on the weekend's health-checks, click here.
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