When they were smuggled across the Lao-Vietnamese border in tiny cages, three wild bear cubs were destined for a life of painful misery in the illegal but flourishing East Asian bear bile trade.
Today they are the first inhabitants of a bear rescue center in northern Vietnam, a facility that organizers hope will help change public attitudes toward what they call a cruel and unnecessary trade.
The Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) sanctuary now taking shape is set to house an initial 200 animals on the edge of a national park north of Hanoi, where bears freed from captivity will be rehabilitated in a mountain forest setting.
Like thousands of other bears in Vietnam and China, the three cubs - named Mara, Mausi and Olly by their new minders - were caught in the wild to be tapped for bile, a substance produced by their gall bladders that is used in Asian traditional medicine.
Called mat gau in Vietnamese, bear bile is sold in the region as a health tonic, an anti-inflammatory, a cure for liver and heart ailments, an aphrodisiac, and even as an additive in shampoo, toothpaste and soft drinks.
The trade, along with habitat destruction, has driven Asiatic black bears, also known as moon bears, to the edge of extinction here, forcing poachers to travel deeper into the forests of neighboring Laos and Cambodia.
The three playful cubs at the AAF center were confiscated in May from cages smuggled on a bus across the Lao-Vietnam border after a tourist contacted an environmentalist group, which alerted the authorities.
"They were tiny, about 2kg each, and completely undernourished," said veterinary nurse Candice Bloom. "They had diarrhea, they were very ill and we think they had parasites as well. They were very scared and frightened."
The Hong Kong-based foundation - which has set up a similar rescue center in Chengdu, China - says it hopes to gather hundreds, and eventually thousands, of the animals, pending government approval to expand its facility.
In the park's initial phase, workers are now building two houses with 24 holding dens, veterinary facilities, nurses' quarters and food storage areas in a picturesque valley on the edge of Tam Dao national park.
Under the blueprint, subject to final state approval, the facility would be expanded across a broader area to resemble an adventure playground for bears, with water pools, climbing structures and a public viewing area.
Vietnam has outlawed bear farms, but at least 4,000 of the animals remain trapped in cages across the country, in part because so far there is no place to put confiscated animals, said AAF Vietnam director Tuan Bendixsen.
"We are building this rescue center so the government can enforce the law, and to use it as a focal point to educate the public," he said. "Hopefully we can change public attitudes and rescue more bears."
The extraction of bear bile is painful and dangerous, said Bendixsen.
"In China they use the 'free drip method' where they just cut a hole in the stomach and let it drip out," he said.
"In Vietnam they knock the bear out with drugs, but not fully. They pull the bear out of the cage and tie it down, use ultrasound machines to find the gall bladder and use a long needle to pump the bile out.
"The needles are not sterile. This causes massive tissue damage and infections. Bears get cancers and nasty diseases. Some animals also lose their paws in traps, some in bear paw soup or in rice wine."
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