Free the Bears story on The 7pm Project - Mary Hutton, Matt Hunt, Rove McManus & Tasma Walton

Interview with Mary Hutton (founder of Free The Bears Fund) & Matt Hunt (CEO of Free the Bears). Plus supporters Rove McManus and Tasma Walton. Narrated by Dr Chris Brown.

Free the Bears fund - http://freethebears.org.au
The 7pm Project - http://the7pmproject.com.au

No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved to their rightful owners.

Broadcast date: 12th of May, 2010 (12/05/2010)
The 7pm Project - Roving Enterprises - Channel Ten (Australia)

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Keywords: South East Asian, bears, cute cub, wildlife protection, Australian charity organisation, traumatised animals in captivity, freethebears, asian black bears, gall bladder, india, asia, dancing bear trade, torture, caged bears, Cambodia sanctuary, tasma walton, rove mcmanus, charity, sun bear missing paw, traps, bear meat in restaurant, rescued bears.

INFORMATION on the organisation:

In 1993, whilst watching a current affairs TV program in Perth, Mary Hutton saw a segment that would change her life and hundreds of others. The segment contained horrifying footage of Asiatic Black bears held in coffin sized cages unable to move or turn with dirty catheters inserted directly into their gall bladder. Mary learned that thousands of bears were being held in these horrifying conditions throughout Asia, regularly milked for their bile to feed the demand for bear bile to be used in traditional medicine. Gall bladders and bile have been used in traditional Asian medicine for centuries, however the commercial farming of bears began recently in Korea during the 1980s so that the bears could be milked for their bile repeatedly throughout their lives.

The next day, Mary drew up a petition and stood at the entrance of the local shopping mall collecting signatures to help Free the Bears. Within months, she had thousands of signatures, a regular group of like-minded supporters which became a committee, and plans to build on the momentum that had gathered into a force to help bears throughout the world. On the 23rd March 1995 Free the Bears Fund was registered as a not for- profit charity. Word of Marys work spread as she delivered petitions to the Chinese Embassy in Canberra surrounded by schoolchildren and organised raffles, film nights and other events to raise awareness about the plight of Asias bears. Memberships and merchandise were sold to raise funds for overseas projects as requests for help started to arrive in the post.

One such request from an Australian businessman, John Stephens, in Cambodia led to Mary learning about the plight of the Sun bear, the worlds smallest and least-studied bear species. John Stephens had rescued a number of bears from Cambodian restaurants where they faced being butchered for bear paw soup but now his work was bringing him back to Australia and the bears needed a new home. Mary organised for the Sun bears to be brought to Australia to start a regional breeding program and, recognising that there were more bears in need of help in Cambodia, began construction of the Cambodian Bear Sanctuary at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. This is now the worlds largest sanctuary for Sun bears and has educated hundreds of thousands of Cambodians about the threats facing their wild bear populations.

Further requests for help arrived and Free the Bears Fund was soon involved in projects throughout South-east Asia and even further afield. A telephone call from Maneka Gandhi in India led to the Fund joining Wildlife SOS and International Animal Rescue in the seemingly impossible challenge of rescuing Indias dancing bears. The first group of 25 rescued bears entered the Agra Bear Rescue Facility on Christmas Eve of 2002 and over the next seven years Free the Bears Fund fully supported the Kalander Rehabilitation Program, providing seed money for more than 500 former dancing bear families to set up new sustainable livelihoods. Less than seven years after the first dancing bears were rescued, the last of Indias dancing bears was handed over into our care and the sight of bears being dragged on ropes through the streets of India is now consigned to the past.
Greater challenges lie ahead for the Fund as we strive to bring bear bile farming to an end in Vietnam and protect Laos wild bears from the many threats that surround them. With each country facing a unique set of issues to overcome, we employ a range of strategies including environmental education, conservation research and strengthened law enforcement to ensure that we achieve our mission to protect, preserve and enrich the lives of bears throughout the world.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• rove
• mcmanus
• tasma
• walton
• free
• the
• bears
• mary
• hutton
• matt
• hunt
• asiatic
• black
• cub
• south
• east
• asia
• 7pm
• project

[InternetDickhead]

FUCK THE FUCKING BEARS! They'd eat all of you obese idiots and consider you only one thing: delicious.

[K4Kelso]

Heart warming! Yet I'm enraged by the images of cruelty these animals are subjected to. Mary Hutton is a ray of hope for humanity. A species that is, for the most part, a blight on this planet.

[MayAndrewsx]

I just donated money for this organization, so sad :(

[11301920]

I wish people would respect animals and quit hurting them. They have feelings just like us and they feel pain.

[australianstheway]

i would kill every single filthy rotten asian cunt in the world to save those bears

[FrenchBulldogWinston]

1 person is going to incinerate in hell.

[CyprusHot]

God bless this woman

[CyprusHot]

@cobolt13 I know, people are disgusting.

[cobolt13]

What scumbag disliked this.