Also known as Asiatic black bears, they were rescued by conservation organization Free the Bears<\/a> and Lao authorities in Southeast Asia’s largest ever bear farm rescue.<\/p>\n Bear bile farming is the controversial industrial exploitation of live bears, to harvest their bile for use in traditional medicine.<\/p>\n The facility, also in Laos, had confined 27 young bears, aged between 1 and 3 years old, to tiny metal cages in a shed.<\/p>\n The bears are believed to have been taken directly from the wild as cubs, with their mothers likely killed in the process.<\/p>\n The Moon bears rescued from an illegal bile farm feel grass and experience theoutside after years trapped in tiny metal cages. (Free The Bears via SWNS)<\/p>\n Ten of the 27 bears saved have now completed their quarantine at Luang Prabang Wildlife Sanctuary in Laos, and have been allowed to explore their enclosure.<\/p>\n Free the Bears said it is the first time they have touched grass, foraged freely or climbed trees since they were illegally taken.<\/p>\n Matt Hunt, CEO of Free the Bears, said: “These bears never had the chance to do things as simple as stand on natural ground or feel the sunshine on their face.<\/p>\n “They have experienced many firsts since they arrived at the sanctuary – meeting other bears, eating vegetables, even learning how to regulate their own water intake after years of only being given water once a day.”<\/p>\n While the first group from the bears has now moved into a forest habitat, the others are still in quarantine as Free the Bears urgently expands the sanctuary.<\/p>\n One of the bears in a cage. (Free The Bears via SWNS)<\/p>\n Having spent their formative years confined to cages, the bears can’t be returned to the wild and will require specialist care for decades.<\/p>\n “This is a very special milestone, but we still have a great deal of work ahead of us,” Hunt said.<\/p>\n “We’re building additional bear houses and forest enclosures as quickly as we can to give these rescued bears a lifelong sanctuary home, but we can only do it with the support of our community.”<\/p>\n Free the Bears is calling on supporters to help fund the urgent \u00a3224,000 (about $300,000) sanctuary expansion, so all 27 rescued bears can move from quarantine into large natural forest habitats in the months ahead.<\/p>\n Providing proper care, including nutritious food, daily enrichment and expert veterinary treatment, can cost over \u00a3112,000 (about $150,000) per bear across their lifetime.<\/p>\n The post Moon bears feel grass for first time after rescue from illegal farm<\/a> appeared first on Talker<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dean Murray Moon bears rescued from tiny cages at an illegal bile farm felt grass under their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[230591,230400,61,60,227221,82,263],"class_list":["post-543291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bear-bile-farming","tag-free-the-bears","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-moon-bears","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/talker_news_345\/8b8eb1ec842c998eaf3f4766bd3bacbc.jpeg\"\/)
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