11、Eliminating bear bile farming and the role of animal welfare education in Chinese society

 

Yanyu Li

AnimalsAsia Foundation

collaborator:Xiaohong Wu(Senior animal welfare educator) Yao Zhang, Rui Gao（AnimalsAsia Foundation）

 

Bear bile farming is one of the cruelest things happening to Asiatic Black Bears; unfortunately bear bile farming is still a legal business in China. Since 1998, the goal of the Animals Asia Foundation has been to eliminate this industry in China. Over the last 15 years we have been ceaseless in our efforts and have rescued over 400 bears both in China and Vietnam and provide living environments for them in our sanctuaries. But we do not just demonstrate how animal welfare should be applied, it is our goal to also inform and educate people to love and have empathy and take responsibility. Animal welfare isn’t just an issue for bears, we work with animal ambassadors who embody the ideals that empathy for one animal can evolve into empathy for an entire species and ultimately for all species. This isn’t just an animal issue, it’s important to human beings. Moral decline has become a big concern in Chinese society, much of which started from ignorance regarding other lives, such as torturing small animals. To us, we’re developing and expanding a humane education, contributing to building a better society and a better future. In this presentation, I’d like to show how we are doing this and our achievements so far.