Free the Bears Fund

Description

Free the Bears Fund is an Australian charity that protects bears from the illegal wildlife trade and bear bile farming.

It started as a petition group in 1993 after a television program showed moon bears being milked for bile, and was registered as a charity in Perth in 1995. A sister charity, Free the Bears UK, was formed in 2010, and together they make up the global Free the Bears group. The organization is a registered charity in Australia and in England and Wales.

Free the Bears rescues and cares for Asian black bears, sun bears and sloth bears, and supports animal welfare projects in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. It built the Cambodian Bear Sanctuary at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, now the world’s largest sanctuary for sun bears, where it educates the public about threats to wild bear populations. It also helped rescue India’s so called dancing bears, working with Wildlife SOS and International Animal Rescue, and funded hundreds of families to give up that practice and adopt other livelihoods.

Its work combines environmental education, conservation research and support for stronger law enforcement against illegal bear farming.