Husband and wife artists, Zeng Jianyong and Tianmu, have sent us their most beautiful paintings of bears as their generous gift to our Moon Bear Rescue campaign.
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Husband and wife artists, Zeng Jianyong and Tianmu, have sent us their most beautiful paintings of bears as their generous gift to our Moon Bear Rescue campaign.
Being on swine flu lockdown at least had the upside of catching up on the backlog of emails, and enjoying the bears out in the sanctuary (once the authorities had released me from room to sanctuary quarantine).
At 3am on Wednesday, Heather our Senior Vet and Tina our translator came knocking at my door accompanied by two gowned and masked officials from China's health bureau.
Our fundraising roadshows are always super busy, but the buzz of meeting our wonderful support groups, old and new friends, and raising much-needed funds for the dogs, cats and bears of Asia makes them 100 per cent fun and worthwhile.
There are no words to express our sense of loss as once again I have to tell you of the death of one of our beautiful bears. Especially a bear like Haribo, whose determination to survive captured the hearts of all who had the privilege to know him.
With a heavy heart I'm afraid that the weekend has brought no positive news following the cruel slaughter of dogs in Shaanxi Province last week. Our good friend, Chinese animal welfarist Jianghong and her team have just returned from a traumatic trip to Hangzhong city and Yangxian. They saw no dogs alive in the streets of Yanxian - just the broken carcasses of innocent victims, and officials washing their hands of blood, and responsibility, for such a brutal knee jerk reaction to rabies.
Longtime supporters Kathy and Larry Schiller from Los Angeles have been superbly generous to the bears – and have surpassed themselves in their latest philanthropic gesture by selling one of their finest Chinese works of art to benefit our work. The auction at Christies in Hong Kong on Saturday 29th May saw the finest example from Zeng Fanzhi’s notorious “Mask” series going under the hammer for a princely sum, and Animals Asia receiving a phenomenal US$100,000 from the proceeds of the sale as a result.
The sight of those wretched dogs trying to crawl away from the people bludgeoning them over the head was beyond words. More heartbreaking still was the scene where a dog was surrounded by men with poles and began to wag his tail in welcome - before screaming in agony as the poles and rods came down upon his body. Howling in terror, he tried to raise himself on already broken limbs as the blows came thick and fast and sent him crashing once more to the ground. Blood gathered in pools around his head before he was picked up by one of his back legs and dragged away. The pile of dead dogs grew - and people in the video laughed – satisfied with a job which had so cruelly stilled the beating hearts of our best friends.
9.17am, Tuesday 26 May: No less than three vets are concentrating on Assisi’s surgery – including our friend Dr John Wu from Guangzhou (wearing purple), just coincidentally on site to see our bears, but happy to scrub in.
In something almost impossible to describe, all of us at the Chengdu bear sanctuary have just been witness to an incredible art form dating back 3,000 years.
Jill founded Animals Asia in 1998, after an encounter with a caged bear on a farm in China changed her life forever. She now heads a team of over 300 enthusiastic staff and divides her time between our bear rescue centres in China and Vietnam and our Hong Kong head office. She travels extensively to participate in conferences and speak at fundraising events.
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