Activists rescue 16 moon bear cubs from Laos house: ‘they were everywhere’
- Wildlife conservation charity Free the Bears said they found 17 cubs in a house in Laos early last week, but that one of them had already died
- Asiatic black bears, as they are also known, are classified as a vulnerable species. Thousands are kept as pets or farmed to extract their bile
The clutch of cubs, also known as moon bears after the white crescent of fur across their chests, are classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of endangered species.
Across Asia, thousands of the animals are kept as pets or farmed to extract their bile for use in costly traditional medicine.
Wildlife conservation charity Free the Bears said they found 17 cubs in the private home in Laos early last week, but that one of them had already died.
“When we arrived at the house there were bear cubs everywhere,” said Fatong Yang, animal manager with the charity.
The group found 10 males and six females, weighing between 1.3kg to 4kg and believed to be around two to four months old.
“Cubs this small are extremely vulnerable. In the wild their mothers would never leave them and we suspect the mothers were killed by poachers,” Fatong said in a statement over the weekend.