John Loizou delves into the world of endangered Asian bears and the thousands of people who devote their lives to pulling them back from the brink of extinction.
A volunteer army whose elderly commander oversees strategies and tactics from her son’s converted garage in suburban Perth is helping to save endangered bears in India, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Mary Hutton, 70, founded the non-profit tax-deductible Free the Bears Fund Incorporated to protect, preserve and enrich the lives of bears throughout the world in 1995.
Since then her troops – supplemented with donations from New Zealand, Britain, North America and Greece – have raised an estimated USD 2.5 million for their war chest.
The money is used to save Sloth bears in India from the degradation of having to dance for a living and Sun and Asiatic Bears from becoming either bear-claw soup in Cambodian; the victims of poachers in Laos or farmed for their bile in Vietnam.
Mary started her crusade after she saw the cruelty of tapping bears for their bile in China via a television documentary.
"I started a petition," she explains.
"We petitioned very heavily for two years raising a lot of public awareness about the bile farms and to stop the practice of bear-bile farming."
Mary concedes that her effort has not been an unqualified success.
"We haven’t been able to get into China because we have been so busy in Vietnam and India and Cambodia and we can’t spread ourselves too thin," she says.
"We have to fight the battles we can win."
Today, the Free the Bears Fund Incorporated has a mailing list of 6,000 that includes members, long-time supporters and people who donate and are entitled to a quarterly newsletter that reports the progress of the projects they have helped finance.
"We have saved, in total, over 600 bears," says Mary.
"It’s very encouraging for people when they ask ‘What do you do?’ and is told 100 per cent of the donations go to the bears.
"We don’t take anything out for administration.
"People who ask, ‘What bears have you saved?’ can see we have hundreds of photographs of all the bears that we have saved who are thriving now in the sanctuaries that we have established throughout Southeast Asia and India.
"They can see for themselves that these bears are no longer in pain or in captivity or in the markets or outside at a restaurant." So how is the money spent?
"Just in India last year alone we sent AUD 800,000 (USD 508,000) to rescue lots of bears because we compensate the owner for the bear," says Mary.
"He gives us his bear and we give him some money to start another business.
"The cost for every bear is AUD 2,000 (USD 1,270) which works out to be pretty expensive and we also support all the bears that have already been rescued through our AUD 2,000 (USD 1,270)."
It’s a misnomer to call them dancing bears.
In reality, the unfortunate creatures are pulled by the nose to make them stand on their hind legs.
They are taught to dance by being beaten about the legs with a wooden ‘waddie’ or placed on hot stoves.
Mary rejects the suggestion that the bears are ‘bought’ from their owners.
"We don’t say buying because that’s trading, but its mainly compensating the owners," she says.
"It’s seed money for them to start another business and in India it’s working very well because they put their children into school and we pay the school fees, the school books, the uniforms and, of course, it’s at the grassroots where the dancing-bear trade is going to break down because if the kids are educated it gives them an opportunity in life as well.
"They buy auto rickshaws with the money.
"The ladies start up sewing machines making saris and carpet weaving. We have saved over 474 bears in India and there are only 200 more bears left and once we get the money we can get the rest of the bears off the road, but then we’ve still got to finance all their welfare – the looking after and the feeding and the vets and everything."
The farming of bears for their bile is illegal in Vietnam but the law has yet to be enforced.
Mary does not know how many illegal bear-bile farms Vietnam hosts but estimates that there might be as many as 4,500 bears being farmed throughout the country.
The bile is taken from the gall bladder, sometimes by catheter.
Once the bear starts to turn brownish, it’s known that the animal has no more healthy bile left.
The bile is sold either crystallised or dried or sometimes by phial at the bear farm.
The people who use it think it will provide health, wealth, ward off evil spirits or keep evil away from the family, she says.
"They think it helps in childbirth, cancer, jaundice, leukaemia, hepatitis and now it’s around that it stops you getting AIDS."
But Mary believes Vietnam’s government officials and wildlife rangers, who are sympathetic to the plight of the bears and sanctuaries that the fund is helping to establish in southern Vietnam, will help with the rescue.
"We like to work with the government and if we say we are going to build a sanctuary we like to put our money where our mouth is," she says.
"We want to let them see that we are not criticising but we want to help them help their endangered species and they had better let us help them because there is not much left out there."