Na the Bear Uncaged After 20 Years of Misery

Nov 9

Nov 9 Na the Bear Uncaged After 20 Years of Misery

An Asiatic black bear named Na spent the last 20 years in a tiny cage in Vietnam. Now she will get a second life in a large, open habitat in a sanctuary with other bears.

Rescuers from World Animal Protection saved Na from a former bear-bile farm, those loathsome facilities where these innocent creatures were kept in cages, some too small for the animals to turn around. Bile is extracted from the gallbladder of living bears, and used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Bear bile farms – as well as extracting bile from wild bears – has been illegal in Vietnam since 2005. World Animal Protection, working with the Vietnam government's Forest Protection Department, has been inspecting defunct farms and negotiating with the farmers to release their former “products,” the bears, which can now only survive in protected sanctuaries.

Na has been relocated to Four Paws bear sanctuary in Ninh Binh, where she lives in a semi-wild habitat with 45 other Asiatic black bears. Like a lot of bile-farm bears, she suffers from chronic osteoarthritis, dental, liver, and heart disease, and is also scheduled for eye surgery to treat glaucoma.

“We're thrilled that Na will finally be free after suffering for so long,” Liz Cabrera Holtz, senior programs manager with World Animal Protection US, said in a statement. “For more than 20 years, she was unable to feel the sun on her back, breathe fresh air, or explore like all bears should.”

There are estimated 300 bears like Na still languishing on former bile farms in Vietnam. The horrendous practice is still legal in China, where there are at least 100 such farms around the country.