The death of Andrew

CHINA has lost one of its greatest statesmen. Andrew, the first farmed Moon Bear rescued by Animals Asia Foundation died peacefully on Thursday [FEB 9] at his bamboo forest home in Chengdu, Sichuan. He was surrounded by those who cared enough to challenge the brutal bear bile trade that ultimately cut short his tragic life.

Andrew was put to sleep after AAF’s horrified vets Drs Kati Loeffler and Phill Elliott discovered his liver was ravaged with cancerous growths – the worst case they had ever seen. He had been slowly, painfully, bleeding to death.

This forgiving, intelligent, Asiatic Black Bear — known affectionately as a Moon Bear because of the yellow crescent on his chest — had become an icon for Animals Asia. He died as he had lived, with dignity, courage and without complaint. The only indication his carers had that he was ill was that he had stopped eating.

The death of her handsome three-legged ambassador just as he was entering middle age comes as a bitter blow to AAF founder and CEO Jill Robinson. “I know we shouldn’t have favourites, but we all just adored Andrew. He was so gentle. All the other bears loved him. The young bears can be quite exuberant when playing and sometimes they’d really hurt him, but he just didn’t care. We used to joke that they called him ‘Uncle Andrew’.”

Andrew was born sometime in the early 1990s in the mist-laden forests of Sichuan. His carefree cub life came to an abrupt end when he tumbled into the barbarous clamp of a poacher’s trap.

On that day, he entered a living hell. Andrew spent the next five to 10 years wracked with pain in a coffin-sized “crush” cage on a farm in nearby Zhiyang. He was milked daily for his bile through a crude metal catheter thrust into his abdomen. He ate a tasteless gruel – enough to keep him alive, but never enough to satisfy his hunger – a hungry bear produces more bile for the lucrative medicinal trade.

Meanwhile, Robinson had spent years lobbying, negotiating and fundraising, and her efforts were finally bearing fruit. The Sichuan authorities gave AAF the go-ahead to start rescuing Moon Bears from the province’s worst farms and a Hong Kong philanthropist pledged US$1 million to set the rescue in motion. His only request was that the first bear be named “Andrew” after his grandson.

He knew he was safe

Andrew was the first of more than 60 rake-thin Moon Bears to arrive at the sanctuary in October 2000. He made an immediate impression. The other bears either cowered in terror or thrashed wildly about their cages. Andrew stayed calm. “It was pandemonium,” remembers Robinson, “but in the middle of this horror was one bear lying on his back picking at the bits of metal holding his rusty cage together. It was as if he knew he was about to start a new life. He knew he was safe.”

It was not just Robinson who fell for the majestic animal with the soulful brown eyes. “Everyone loved Andrew,” says Toby Zhang director of the rescue centre. “He was our special bear.”

Local rescue worker Xiao Huang, who nourished “Anderloo” — his Chinese name — back to good health when he first arrived, was among the mourners who gathered for a simple ceremony while Andrew’s body was burnt on a funeral pyre. “He would come when I called him. I loved him, I fed him,” Xiao managed to tell a local TV crew before fleeing in tears.

Andrew weighed just 130 kilos when he arrived at the centre. Within months he tipped the scales at 190 kilos. He loved to eat and savoured his new diet of fresh fruit, grains, raisins and honey. Before long, he towered over most of the other rescued bears, but he remained the centre’s gentle giant. His favourite pastime was napping in the afternoon sun.

Andrew’s is a quiet legacy, but his rescuers hope his shocking end might sound the death knell for China’s barbaric trade in bear bile. “There has to be a reason for this,” says Robinson. “In Korea, it was the people who stopped this terrible practice. That could happen in China too if only people understood the truth.”

Sadly, Andrew’s case is not unique. To date nine other young to middle-aged rescued bears have developed fatal liver tumors and AAF fears many more will follow. It is rare for bears that have not been tapped to succumb to the disease unless they are old.

“We’ve done everything we could to save Andrew, but still they got him in the end,” says Robinson, in a rare flash of anger. “This must not be in vain.”

Andrew is survived by a family of 162 rescued bears and more than 7,000 still trapped in farms throughout China.

Angela Leary, originally from Tasmania, is a journalist living in Hong Kong