In Laos, sixteen Asian black bears, an endangered species, saved in one day

After the discovery of the small mammals in a house, an NGO managed to place them in a shelter in Luang Prabang, about 300 km north of the Laotian capital. This species is particularly targeted by poachers.

The ten males and six females, aged two to four months, weighed between 1.3 kg and 4 kg. Sixteen endangered Asian black bear cubs were discovered in a home in Laos and placed in a shelter earlier this week. According to the NGO Free the Bears, this is the largest rescue carried out in one day since the start of the year by the association, whose headquarters is located in Australia. This animal species is on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The sixteen cubs were kept in a house in the capital Vientiane, where the organization found a seventeenth, dead. “When we arrived at this house, there were bear cubs everywhere”declared an official of the NGO. “Cups of this size are extremely vulnerable. In the wild, their mothers would never leave them. We believe they were killed by poachers,” he added.

Cubs placed in a shelter

The small mammals were transported to a shelter in Luang Prabang, about 300 km north of Vientiane. A Laotian was taken into police custody, according to the NGO. Laotian police, who are continuing their search to find the owners of the house, were alerted after a neighbor heard one of the cubs screaming.

In Asia, particularly in China, thousands of bears are immobilized in narrow cages, their abdomens perforated by a catheter or fistula connected to their gallbladder in order to collect bile. The latter is sold at a high price for the many therapeutic qualities that are attributed to it, often wrongly. It is believed to help regulate cholesterol or dissolve gallstones and kidney stones. Laos has banned this practice, but despite this, this lucrative trade persists.