Bear Who Spent 9 Years In ‘Torture Vest’ Can’t Hide Excitement When Seeing Water First Time
Mar 14, 2019 by apost team
For one bear named Tuffy, life has been a hard road to travel. The bear spent nine years of his life on a bile farm where he spent his time in a small cage. Workers at bile farms extract bile from the gallbladder of bears. This bile is then used to make medicines.
The bile extraction process is extremely painful for the bear and they are required to wear a 'torture vest' during the process. According to Animals Asia, after nine years on the farm, Tuffy was released. The bear was sent to live at the Animals Asia sanctuary in Vietnam. There, a vet gave the bear a checkup. It turned out his gallbladder had to be removed due to the damage that occurred during his years at the bile farm. Three of Tuffy's teeth were also fractured and there were problems with his paws.
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Louise Ellis, the bear manager at Animals Asia, says the problem with paws is common for bears who lived on bile farms. The reason for this is bears living at bile farms walk on bars their entire life and not grass.
“Coming from years of little or no water, for Tuffy this must feel like a true oasis… It must have felt like such a relief to have the freedom to splash around in the water after only being able to stand on the hard metal bars of the bile farm cage.”
Not long after Tuffy's surgery, The bear was taken to his new home by Animals Asia volunteers. The large enclosure came complete with a pool for Tuffy to enjoy.
Tuffy headed for the pool as soon as he arrived at his new home. He had never played in water before and his excitement was obvious. Tuffy swam around the pool, splashed water all about, and had a genuinely good time for himself. Tuffy's joy brought smiles to the faces of the volunteers who watched him.
Animal Asia volunteers also found out Tuffy loved being outside. In fact, the bear never used the den available to him at the enclosure. Instead, Tuffy chose to sleep under the stars every night.
It took about a year for Tuffy to regain full strength. He gained weight and did not look much like the bear who was rescued from the bile farm a year earlier. Tuffy has moved once again, this time to an enclosure he shares with 15 other moon bears with similar backgrounds. The Vietnamese government announced bile farming of bears will be prohibited in the country as of 2020.
Did you know of the bile farming issue with bears before hearing of Tuffy's story? Tell us your thoughts on this matter in the comments and pass the article on to your animal loving friends. Many of them will be shocked at what happens at bear bile farms. We should raise awareness on this topic together.