Six bears rescued today - Snow has been in pain for most of his life

“...he’s going to feel so much better. He has a long way to go but we’ve already got the first step.” The words of Animals Asia Senior Vet Surgeon Mandala after examining and treating Snow - one of six bears rescued today by Animals Asia from a bile farm in Vietnam. It’s hard to imagine identifying the huge list of problems Snow faces and seeing the positive but that’s Mandala’s gift. As she points out, he woke today after his anaesthetic fully hydrated and benefitting from pain killers. The improvement has started already. Snow has had a rotten life but it’s a life that can change for the better starting now. Today it’s cleaning up his poor damaged paws and helping him deal with the pain he suffers. This evening he enjoyed a proper meal of fruit and veggies - instead of the bile farm rice gruel he’s been fed for years. Tomorrow he’ll get plenty of leaves and branches and there’s a small chance that he has enough of his natural instincts left for him to realise he can nest with them. He’ll line his transport cage on the rescue truck as, kilometre by kilometre, it takes him home. Ahead of him are operations. Treats and toys to see him through quarantine. Special days like the one when he'll meet his first friend. And then, the day that we all try to be patient for. The day he walks out into the sunlight and finally puts his horrific bile farm days behind him. Are we getting ahead of ourselves here? No. Because when we rescue each bear, that’s exactly where we need to be. Thinking and planning ahead and building a new life. And we need your help to do this. Because you make rescues happen. You rehabilitate bears. You take bears out of cages and you make them well. It is our pleasure to help you do it and frankly we can never begin to thank you enough. Whatever else you achieved today - you rescued Snow and his friends and you started to take away their pain. What a day. Be proud. If you would like to be part of this rescue and help us rebuild these bears’ lives please donate today here: http://bit.ly/HFTHr To look back over today’s rescue and follow their journey home go to our live timeline: http://bit.ly/hfthLIVE Thank you for doing this. Thank you for making this happen.