IN MAY OF 2024, in the Vietnamese province of Binh Duong, an Asiatic black bear named Chinh stepped into the full light of day for perhaps the first time in 20 years. Suspected to have been captured as a cub, Chinh was one of 15 bears living in a small shed behind a house just north of Ho Chi Minh City. Each bear lived in a cage scarcely bigger than their own body, the pens placed just close enough for the bears to see and smell each other but too far to reach one another’s outstretched paws. Over the preceding five years, each of Chinh’s 14 cellmates had been rescued. He was the last one left.

Jeremy Lamberton, communications manager for Bear Sanctuary Ninh Binh, where Chinh was being relocated, was among those present on the hot spring day of Chinh’s rescue. So were the local authorities and his owner.

“Chinh had to watch 14 other bears be rescued,” said Lamberton. “He belonged to a different farmer than the other bears, so that was an excruciating wait for all. I was really grateful when we heard, finally, that they were willing to voluntarily transfer us the bear. It meant the closing of another bear farm.”

While the handover day went smoothly, taking only a matter of hours, Chinh’s rescue had been a long time coming. Like thousands of Asiatic black bears, Chinh spent years subjected to the brutal conditions of bear bile farming, a practice where bears are kept in captivity in order to routinely extract their bile, which is used in traditional Asian medicine. His release was the hard-fought result of a decades-long crackdown on the industry in Vietnam.

After cooling Chinh down with a shower, the rescue team loaded him gently onto a truck, where an animal manager and veterinarian joined him for the two-day drive north to his new home at the sanctuary in Ninh Binh province. One of four in Vietnam, the sanctuary was founded in 2017 to provide a home for bears, like Chinh, rescued from now-illegal bile farms.

Journalist Ryley Graham reports on how Chinh and other bears rescued from Vietnam’s once-booming bear bile industry are finding dignity in a network of sanctuaries around the country.

Photo by Tontan Travel

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