{"id":611670,"date":"2026-05-30T07:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611670\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T07:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:20:11","slug":"sussex-animal-charity-backs-largest-ever-rescue-of-bears-from-illegal-farm-in-laos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611670\/","title":{"rendered":"Sussex animal charity backs &#8216;largest ever&#8217; rescue of bears from illegal farm in Laos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">A <a class=\"qNUzV q7LZa\" data-testid=\"next-link-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/topic\/sussex\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sussex<\/a> animal charity has thrown its backing behind a major rescue operation involving 27 young bears in Laos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">The Uckfield-based International Animal Rescue has hailed the plan by Free the Bears, which is believed to be the largest ever rescue of the animals in South East Asia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">It saw 27 moon bears &#8211; also known as Asiatic black bears &#8211; saved from an illegal bile farm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">The facility has since been shut down by Laos authorities, and the bears &#8211; which are all believed to be between one and three years old &#8211; resettled at the organisation&#8217;s wildlife sanctuary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">Its CEO, Matt Hunt, said the rescue is an &#8220;incredible milestone&#8221; which &#8220;represents a long-term commitment to every one of these bears&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">He added: &#8220;We&#8217;re ready to give them safe, healthy lives they deserve. But we really can&#8217;t do it alone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">To cope with the added financial burden of caring for its new arrivals, the charity has set up a fundraising page, with an overall target of $300,000 (\u00a3223,000).<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">It says it will use the money to build new enclosures and hire more staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"A8Lwr BVYCX\">Reporting History sees journalists join News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby to revisit their remarkable on-the-day reports of the defining events of the modern age. Listen to the episodes below&#8230;<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sussex animal charity has thrown its backing behind a major rescue operation involving 27 young bears in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-611670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}