We start this week with an update on a sanctuary for rescued moon bears in Laos. It’s run by Free the Bears, an amazing charity dedicated to caring for moon and sun bears rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and bile farms in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I first wrote about the Luang Prabang Wildlife Sanctuary (LPWS) back in 2018, just as it was getting ready to officially open and I’ve kept a keen eye on their ongoing work ever since.
Not surprisingly, there have been lots of changes since I was fortunate enough to visit this stunning corner of the Lao countryside (even if it did rain pretty much non-stop the three days I was there). For starters, the sanctuary has grown significantly with two new bear houses under construction, the completion of their cub nursery and quarantine facility, plus new enclosures for other species.
Moon Bears enjoying one of the enclosures
Two bear houses have been constructed with the support of the Wildlife Reserves Singapore, better known as the Singapore Zoo. Through a percentage of their ticket sales they look to support various conservation projects in the region and have been working with Free the Bears for a number of years. Watch this video to get a glimpse of what that support entails and how your zoo visit helps make a difference.
Mary the Sun Bear at the Free the Bears sanctuary in Luang Prabang
The extra facilities have been much needed as Free the Bears continue to be extremely busy with their primary focus, rescuing bears from inhumane bile farms, where the animals are kept in tiny cages and their bile extracted for its alleged ‘health benefits’ in some Traditional Chinese Medicine.
In 2019, they rescued 18 bears in Laos alone, and in the last six months they have rescued four bears in Laos, a sun bear in Cambodia and, just this month in Vietnam, two moon bears that had spent the previous 18 years suffering in a bile farm. The video below shows a moon bear rescued in February in Vietnam enjoying his first swim after spending nearly two decades trapped in a tiny metal cage - be warned though the shots of the bear at rescue are pretty harrowing.
And it’s not just bears that have found their way to the sanctuary with over 40 animals including tortoise, turtle, macaques, muntjac deer, serow, red pandas, critically endangered pangolins and a white cheeked gibbon all recent arrivals at the 25-hectare site in Laos. According to Free the Bears’ Regional Communications Manager Rod Mabin it is suspected that COVID 19 has led to an increase in poaching and illegal trade in wildlife.
One of the red pandas that is resident at the Laos sanctuary. It was rescued while being smuggled out of China
“We've seen more bear cubs for sale on social media in Laos this year than previous years,” confirms Rod. “That may indicate that more people are turning to the forest for income, given the destruction of the travel and tourism industry in Laos.”
An inability to travel has also put pressure on staffing within the organisation. For starters Rod, who is normally based out of Bangkok, has been stuck in Luang Prabang for six months as the borders between the two countries remain closed. The sanctuary’s vet advisor and technical advisor (Australian volunteers sponsored by the Australian government) were repatriated early on, which Rod says “was a blow, as we're heavily reliant on these specialist volunteers coming in to share skills and develop our local teams.” Their main vet consultant also currently can’t get back from Australia and it's proving challenging to get vet and specialist construction supplies from overseas.
Various scenes from the Free the Bears sanctuaries in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam
Like many charities and conservation groups around the world, Free the Bears, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this March, has also been impacted by the economic fallout from the pandemic. Rod admits that they have lost a number of their usual fundraising sources; for example, they’ve been unable to operate their volunteer scheme where individuals could pay to visit and help out at the different sanctuaries in South East Asia.
They have been busy online and have looked at creative ways of raising funding, including Night In A Cage fundraiser, where supporters agreed to seek sponsors to spend a night in a makeshift cage. Their inspirational 82 year old founder Mary Hutton even joined in and the event raised over AUS$80,000 (SG$77,000).
Even so Rod admits that things were looking bleak by the end of their financial year in June. They're following this up with their WALK to FREE THE BEARS event in November, recruiting supporters around the world to walk or run 10,000 metres in a day, one metre for every bear that remains in a bear bile farm, so as to raise awareness and raise funds to build more bear houses allowing the charity to rescue more bears from the farms.
Fortunately, the sanctuary and the charity got an amazing boost as they, and one of their rescued sun bears Mary, star in a great BBC documentary called Bears about the House. Indeed, it was watching the charming two-part series (still available on iPlayer) that pushed me to get back in touch with the team and check on how things were progressing.
As Rod admits it really helped increase the profile of the organisation and led to a rise in donations, which has currently helped prevent any retrenchments and allowed the organisation to continue the essential rescues and rehabilitation projects.
“We're incredibly lucky to have had this opportunity in the first place, but to have it occur at this time has really spared us from much of the disastrous effects of COVID,” confirmed Rod. Of course, that kind of publicity doesn’t last forever so any help or support you can give is always incredibly welcome and helps to give these beautiful creatures a better life.
A weekend with the birds
While there doesn’t seem much chance of getting back to Laos and visiting the bears anytime soon there is a good reason to get out into your nearest patch of nature this weekend. Launched this year by new conservation group Global Birding, the idea behind Global Bird Weekend (17-18th October) is to try and get the general public from all over the world to head outdoors and spot as many birds as possible in their local area.
Their ambitious aim is to get over 20,000 participants involved on Saturday 17th October, with a target of recording up to 6,000 different species of birds. If achieved this would break a Guinness World Record for the largest number of birds seen by the greatest number of people in one day.
You can join as an individual or sign up as a team through the site and then download the e-bird app to log all the birds you spot during the weekend. Having a look on their site, there are teams signed up from as far afield as South Africa and Argentina to Vanuatu and Guyana, as well as a couple of teams with members from Singapore.
As well as celebrating the joy of bird watching and a love of nature, both activities that have received renewed interest during Covid, the organisers hope to raise awareness and funds to support BirdLife International's appeal to end the illegal bird trade. This is something that’s very relevant to South East Asia where songbirds are being poached from the remaining tropical forests at an alarming rate.
Finding nature of your doorstep
A morning view at MacRitchie Reservoir a Key Biodiversity Area in Singapore
If you do sign up and are looking for somewhere special to go birding then you could do worse then check out this new website by the KBA Partnership, a collection of conservation groups including the World Wildlife Fund, the Rainforest Trust and Conservation International. KBA stands for Key Biodiversity Areas, which as the name suggests are some of the most important places globally for sustaining endangered animal and plant life and cover everything from coral reefs and tropical rainforests to mountain plateaus and marshlands.
The organisation is focused on identifying and mapping these key areas so that they, and the species that call them home can be properly protected and conserved. If you want to find such areas near you, then the site lets you search regionally or by country from a current database of over 16000 KBAs, with detailed information on each one’s importance and some of the key species that can be found within their borders – there are three KBAs in Singapore: Sungei Buloh Wetlands, the Central Catchment Reserve around MacRitchie Reservoir and Palau Ubin.
The website lets you search for biodiversity areas around the world
The site also includes information on how you can get involved in protecting your local KBAs, either through fund raising, helping to organise a national coordination group in your country and even how to identify and propose new KBAs.
Searching for Singapore species
Smooth-coated otters are one of the more famous species found in Singapore
Finally, to end a hectic week, another website related to biodiversity that isn’t new, but one that I only discovered the other day. Biodiversity of Singapore describes itself as “a response to a common Singaporean query – “What/where are the animals and plants of Singapore?” (or more colloquially, ‘Singapore got biodiversity meh?’).”
Put simply this is an extensive (and ever-growing) database of the diverse range of creatures that you can find on this species-rich island.
Hosted by Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, which also houses a rich physical collection of specimens, the database is incredibly extensive, featuring everything from algae to otters and pangolins to praying mantis.
In fact, there are currently over 15000 individual species to browse, each with an image to help with identification and information covering everything from its endangered status to what other animals like to prey on it.
Now I just need to get out there and spot them all …