#Moonbearmonday: A little help from my friends

16 June 2014

Taz realises he's broken the swing

When staff at Animals Asia’s Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre integrated 15 bears they couldn’t have known just how quickly the bears would bond and start working together.

Within a few days of playing in their new outdoor enclosure, one particularly enthusiastic bear had broken his bamboo swing.

Taz thinks something must be wrong up here...

(Pssst – it was Taz!)

Bears love few things more than a good swing but this distraught bear didn’t just start sulking and find a different toy – no, he immediately called to his moon bear pals for assistance.

Thomas calls other moon bears to the rescue

Within minutes a moon bear engineering crew had assembled and gathered round the stricken apparatus. Led by Thomas Bear they soon realised that to get swinging again, they’d need to reconnect the rope to the top of the wooden A-frame.

I think I've found the problem!

Not put off by their lack of opposable thumbs, Bradley and Xin Xin clambered up the frame and shimmied their way across the log like contestants on The Crystal Maze.

Bradley and Xin Xin get a bird's eye view

Once on top, things started to get more complicated. Bradley decided that the frame needed a counter weight so sat on the opposite A-frame and watched, while Birgit decided she needed a rest so sat on the broken swing.

Where there's a will there's a way

Tieu Long and Bradley meanwhile where barking up the right tree realising that the malfunction had something to do with the ropes tied around the A-frame, but what could it be?

They sniffed the rope, they sniffed each other. They moved the rope from above and below but still the swing remained broken. They even held hands – perhaps vaguely aware that something on top needed to be attached to something on the bottom.

But alas, moon bear claws are much more adept at breaking swings than fixing them.

And perhaps they knew from long experience that the Swing Fairy would pay a visit during the night…?

Does anyone have any thumbs?


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