Moon Bear Rescue Centre

It’s a hot sticky day in Chengdu, China, and I lead the last group of the Wild and Ancient China trips to the Moon Bear Rescue Centre. I warn them of the graphic material that is exhibited in the info centre, but I also encourage them to head inside as the knowledge gained is empowering for anyone wishing to be a conservation representative. The posters, photographs, and objects are real items from inhumane bear farms where over 7,000 moon bears are still kept alive simply for bile extraction.

In brief, moon bears (Ursus thibetanus) also referred to as Asiatic black bears, Tibetan black bears, or Himalayan black bears depending on the subspecies, produce a considerable amount of bile compared with other bear species. Unfortunately, Traditional Chinese Medicine has relied on bear bile to cure a range of ailments from heart disease, colon illnesses, to fevers. Some companies even use bear bile as an additive in non-medical products such as toothpaste.


Considering the main product extracted from bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid, can be produced synthetically and over 50 herbal alternatives exist, the use of bear bile in pharmaceutical products is unnecessary. Nevertheless, the pressure of poaching this endangered species was considerably high and in search of a wildlife management solution, the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese governments decided to allow the use of bear farms. Basically, a moon bear is placed in a cage, also known as a crush cage, and compressed into a space far less than the bear’s average body mass would normally fit. To extract the bile, catheters are inserted into the bear and left inside the bear to facilitate continuous bile extraction by bear bile farmers. Infections, illnesses, and other medical complications often take a toll on the bear, and along with psychological distress, a bear in a bile farm can suffer considerably from pain and succumb to a slow death.


In efforts to cease the bear bile farming, Jill Robinson (founder and CEO of Animals Asia Foundation) visited these farms during the early 1980s. She struck a deal with the Chinese government in 2000 to release 500 bears to her for rehabilitation and she created the Moon Bear Rescue Centre as a place where each bear can have a chance at a life again, as a bear. She has only received 270 bears to date, but she remains as a great model for taking chances and leading a slow but very important animal welfare and conservation revolution.

Nearing the end of our tour of the Moon Bear Rescue Centre, we arrive at the gift shop. I encourage the guests to peruse the items for sale in support of the Centre, but I slowly become aware of an individual’s voice speaking just outside the shop in an English accent. I step outside to take a peak and immediately recognize the face and voice of moon bear conservation. It is Jill Robinson!

I introduce myself and mention both Natural Habitat Adventures as well as my PhD studies. Jill is a very pleasant woman, and we get along cheerily. After meeting some guests in the group, Jill turns to me and asks if I have about 5 min to spare so she can show us a few things. I happily reply “of course”, and she leads us to the medical facilities of the Centre. In one room, a bear is having xrays taken, and in another room a bear is having cataract surgery.

We are allowed to enter both rooms, interact with the bears, and discuss issues with the veterinarians on site. It is an amazing and unique opportunity that will undoubtedly make a long-lasting impact on everyone, in support of Jill’s rescue efforts, one moon bear at a time.

Playful Giant Pandas

Its 8am and I am off to the Giant Panda kindergarten! Appropriately labeled as such, the kindergarten is a place for one year old cubs to get to know their world and discover the limits, if any, of their abilities as a bear. But first I pass the nursery where two 4 week cubs lay flat on their bellies in incubators barely opening their eyes. If they could, they would see the cooing faces of humans peeking through the windows. These cubs are all current products of the Giant Panda breeding program at the Bifengxia base of the CCRCP. The breeding program is the best response thus far that pandas have been provided for bringing their population back from the brink of extinction.


Fisher Price and FIFA would be happy enterprises if they could see what I could. Seven little pandas are bouncing around after their morning meal of bamboo, apples, and carrots, and chucking around a soccer ball and tripping over plastic toys. The pandas tug at the workers in their enclosure thinking they may be walking bamboo, and alas discover these two-legged animals are barely edible. Some pandas in a corner are engaged in a tug of war with a large bamboo shoot, while others roll over, around, and fall head over heels from a wooden platform built just for that purpose.


Later in the morning, some of my clients have opted to pay for an exclusive encounter session where they are allowed to enter an enclosure with juvenile panda bears. I am also allowed in as their photographer and before I know it little panda bears are wondering if I am walking bamboo too. While maximizing photo opportunities for my clients, I am nearly toppled over by a couple of pandas who have snuck up on me to wrap themselves around my leg. It is an unbelievable experience to feel the strength of a little bear as it wraps itself tightly around in hopes that I might taste good or maybe just pat down the coarseness of its fur. It is hard to know what the young bears are actually after, but the title of panda kindergarten is certainly well deserved. Without the distraction of an apple, the young bears seem inexhaustible in their energy levels and it is really a shame they are likely to never experience the wild as their true home.

As one of the world’s most elusive animals in their natural habitat, it is almost impossible to see a wild panda bear, and even more unlikely to ever release a captive bear to the natural world. Although designed for a solitary life, the bears of the breeding program grow up together as their habitats are not secure and release sites are far from political agendas. Deforestation and other factors contributing to habitat loss are major detriments to the remaining 2,000 or so (this number is still debated after 30 years of research) wild panda bears. Enhancing the wild population with the captive breeding program is not yet feasible and so it seems the vision of population recovery is still just a dream.

Who is this Lesser (aka Red) Panda?

I have returned from China – a place where government censorship has prevented me from updating my blog. I will post just a few things in the next few days before I am off for polar bear season soon. To start – well its seems people know of the Giant Panda bear, the cute, furry, black and white species that gave rise to what is probably the world’s most famous conservation organization, the World Wildlife Fund. But few know of the Lesser Panda, or otherwise known as the Red Panda species. Just as cute, just as furry, and likely just as endangered, the Lesser Panda is no less of a species deserving of a blog!


Tough to track in the wild, the Lesser Panda is a species to see at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCP), Chengdu, China. It is easy for me to see how this small animal might help herald the conservation efforts of the Giant Panda - an issue in my opinion that should be carefully debated.

Showing off its pretty fur, I see this little animal captivate the attention of onlookers around me at the CCRCP even though it is barely engaging in any kind of active or exciting display. There is something witty in its eyes though, and something cunning. It is of the sort that you see when you catch a raccoon red handed in your garbage as he or she is scattering it around for all your neighbours to see the next morning.

Similar to the Giant Panda, the Lesser Panda’s genetic lineage is confused and arguable. This little animal, comparable in size to a large raccoon, has bounced back and forth in its phylogenetric tree and is now considered to be in a family of its own. Although not much really to do with a cat as its latin name might suggest; it translates to“shining cat”, and the animal species doesn’t have much to do with bears either. Unfortunately preferring habitats similar to the Giant Panda, the Lesser Panda is dependent upon the highland forests of China. This species searches the remaining patches of forests to satisfy a diet of bamboo. Worldwide, the abundance is thought to be in the range of 36,000 to 75,000; indeed there is not much in the way of confidence in those numbers!