Rescued moon bears arrive at sanctuary

SHOTLIST Binh Duong province - 18 January 2010 1. Mid of man locking bear''s compartment of the cargo container 2. Close up of bear in compartment of cargo container 3. Mid of cargo container 4. Low angel shot of bear 5. Staff of Animals Asia Foundation giving food to bears 6. Bear inside compartment eating fruit 7. Wide of bear containers in Binh Duong province''s bear farm area 8. Close up of bear container being lifted 9. Man inside crane conducting it to lift bear container 10. Bear container on truck 11. Various of bear in its compartment after moving container 12. SOUNDBITE (English) Tuan Bendixsen, Regional director of Animals Asia Foundation in Vietnam: "It is the first time that we have rescued a large number of bears, 19 bears in total, and also it is the first time that we have to travel such a long distance to rescue them." 13. Wide of compartment being lifted with bear moves inside 14. SOUNDBITE (English) Tuan Bendixsen, Regional director of Animals Asia Foundation in Vietnam: "These bears, if you ask the owner he will say that he kept these 19 bears for pets, just like we kept dogs and cats, but we found out that one of the bears has an abscess on its stomach, and we found out that it came from the bile extraction (which) happened about a month and a half ago." 15. Pan of truck carrying bears on road Tam Dao Bear Rescue Centre, Vinh Phuc Province - 22 January 2010 16. Wide of Tam Dao Bear Rescue Centre 17. Board reading "Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre - Quarantine Facility" 18. Quarantine facility 19. Rear shot of vet injecting bear with anaesthetic through bars of container 20. Animals Asia staff moving anaesthetised bear out from container 21. Various of vet team doing health check on bear 22. Close up of bear''s limb 23. Close up of veterinary shaving bear''s hair 24. Vet doing ultrasound for bear 25. Close of ultrasound machine 26. SOUNDBITE (English) Heather Bacon, Veterinary Director, Animals Asia Foundation: "We know that a couple of them have missing limbs from being snared in the wild in a leg hole trap, so that''s quite distressing to think that these were definitely wild animals at some point, and a couple of them have ocular disease so that could be related to poor nutrition or infection." 27. Close up of vet marking bear''s ear 28. Team transferring bear into cage STORYLINE An animal rights activist group has rescued 19 Moon bears from an illegal bile farm in Vietnam and transferred them to a rescue centre, where they arrived on Friday. The bears were found at an illegal Taiwanese-owned operation in southern Vietnam, where they were living in small cages converted from metal shipping cargo containers. On Friday, four days after being hoisted onto tractor trailers and driven two-thousand kilometres (1,240 miles) north, they reached the rescue centre, which lies about two hours'' drive outside Hanoi, the capital. The government had deemed their previous living conditions unsuitable. Bear bile has been used for thousands of years in Asia to treat fevers, pain, inflammation and many other ailments. The newly rescued bears - two of them missing limbs and one blind - were sedated and removed one-by-one from the cargo containers on Friday at Tam Dao National Park, run by Animals Asia Foundation. They joined 29 bears already at the rescue centre. Ultrasound tests found evidence of thickened gall bladders in one of the bears, a telltale sign of bile milking, said Animals Asia veterinary director Heather Bacon. She said it may need to have the organ removed due to extensive damage. The moon bears, named after the tan crescent-shape marking across their chests, will remain in quarantine for 45 days. In the US and Canada, it was around 15 percent. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/f20477405b269f382a6060f72141cce5 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork