A bear cub that was recently rescued from a bear bile farm in Vietnam is now enjoying life on a sanctuary, splashing in the sun.
The government-registered charity Animals Asia freed Georges, an Asian black bear, or moon bear, from a local bear bile farm where the animal was mistreated and neglected. But now, Georges spends his summer days carefree and cooling off in the searing Vietnam heat with a nice ice cold bath. His summertime dip can be seen in a video here.
According to the organization's website, about 10,000 bears - mainly moon bears, but also sun bears and brown bears - are kept on bile farms in China, and around 2,400 in Vietnam. The bears are regularly milked for their bile, which is an important ingredient in local traditional medicines.
Workers on these farms use painful, invasive techniques to extract the bears' valuable bile, and often cause infections. Not only that, but the animals are kept in cramped cages without enough room to lay down or move around. Some unfortunate bears are put in these horrible conditions as cubs and never released, and some will spend up to 30 years caged.
"Most farmed bears are starved, dehydrated and suffer from multiple diseases and malignant tumors that ultimately kill them," Animals Asia writes.
And despite the availability of a large number of effective and affordable herbal and synthetic alternatives, the cruel practice is still used today.
But organizations like Animals Asia have helped save some of these bears - 400 to date - including Georges.
Though adorable, Georges' ice cold bath is not unusual for this bear species. Lots of moon bears cool off this way, according to the website's bear guide, especially with temperatures in Vietnam and China rising above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Besides having a swim, other ways these bears - at least in the sanctuary - escape the summer heat is by laying in the shade, sucking on ice-covered fruit or perching atop a tree after it rains to feel the cool breeze.