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The Free the Bears Fund (FBF) is an Australian charitable wildlife-protection organization, started by Mary Hutton.
The organization was formed in 1993, [1] in response to Australian Television program A Current Affair airing a segment containing footage of moon bears being regularly milked for their bile.
On 23 March 1995, Free the Bears Fund was registered as a not-for-profit charitable organization [2] in Perth, Australia. [3]
The organization fought for several of the Sun bears to be brought to Australia to start a regional breeding program as FBF began construction of the Cambodian Bear Sanctuary at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. [4] This is now the world’s largest sanctuary for Sun bears, educating hundreds of thousands of Cambodians about the threats facing their wild bear populations each year.
Further requests for help arrived, and Free the Bears was soon involved in projects throughout Southeast Asia and further afield. Free the Bears joined Wildlife SOS and International Animal Rescue in an attempt to rescue India’s "dancing" bears. The first group of 25 rescued bears entered the Agra Bear Rescue Facility on Christmas Eve, 2002. Over the next seven years, Free the Bears provided seed money for more than 500 families to abandon the practice of "dancing" bears and adopt new sustainable livelihoods. Less than seven years after the first "dancing" bears were rescued, the last of India’s "dancing" bears were handed over to the sanctuary. [5]
The Free the Bears Fund supports animal welfare projects in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, working with rescued and confiscated Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), and sloth bear (Melursus ursinus). A sister charity, Free the Bears UK was established in the United Kingdom in 2010. [6]
The organization plans to halt the spread of bear bile farming and protect wild bears from the threat of the illegal wildlife trade. With bears in each country facing a unique set of issues that threaten their future, Free the Bears employs a range of strategies including environmental education, conservation research, and strengthened law enforcement.
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being.
WIRES Wildlife Rescue is the largest wildlife rescue & rehabilitation charity in Australia. It is a non-profit organisation providing rescue and rehabilitation for all native Australian fauna. All animal rescuers and carers are volunteers. It is funded by public donations and operates throughout the most populous Australian state, New South Wales.
The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to "Keep Wildlife in the Wild". It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes compassionate conservation, which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives. Born Free also creates and provides educational materials and activities that reflect the charity's values.
Bile bears, sometimes called battery bears, are bears kept in captivity to harvest their bile, a digestive fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which is used by some traditional Asian medicine practitioners. It is estimated that 12,000 bears are farmed for bile in China, South Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar. Demand for the bile has been found in those nations as well as in some others, such as Malaysia and Japan.
Charity gambling is a "form of incentivized giving" where a charity, rather than a municipality or private casino, oversees gambling activities such as bingo, roulette, lottery, and slot machines and uses the proceeds to further its charitable aims.
World Animal Protection, formerly The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), is an international non-profit animal welfare organization that has been in operation since 1981. The charity's mission is to create a better world for animals by protecting them.
Jill Robinson MBE is a British animal welfare activist. She is the founder of Animals Asia Foundation.
Humane Society International (HSI) is the international division of The Humane Society of the United States. Founded in 1991, HSI has expanded The HSUS's activities into Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. HSI's Asian, Australian, Canadian, and European offices carry out field activities and programs.
The wildlife of Cambodia is very diverse with at least 162 mammal species, 600 bird species, 176 reptile species, 900 freshwater fish species, 670 invertebrate species, and more than 3000 plant species. A single protected area, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, is known to support more than 950 total species, including 75 species that are listed as globally threatened on the IUCN Red List. An unknown amount of species remains to be described by science, especially the insect group of butterflies and moths, collectively known as lepidopterans.
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Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) is a Hong Kong-based charity that seeks to end cruelty to animals in Asia.
Mary Julia Hutton is the Australian founder of the Free the Bears Fund, and an animal activist.
Wildlife Alliance is an international non-profit forest and wildlife conservation organization with current programs in Cambodia. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Phnom Penh. The logo of the organization is the Asian elephant, an emblematic species and the namesake for the Southwest Elephant Corridor that Wildlife Alliance saved when it was under intense threat of poaching and habitat destruction in 2001. It is today one of the last remaining unfragmented elephant corridors in Asia. Due to Government rangers' and Wildlife Alliance's intensive anti-poaching efforts, there have been zero elephant killings since 2006. Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Alliance, and one of the original founders of WildAid. The organization is governed by a board of directors and an international advisory board that provides guidance on strategy, fundraising, and outreach.
International Animal Rescue (IAR) is an animal protection and conservation non-profit organisation that comes to the aid of suffering animals with hands-on rescue and rehabilitation and the protection of wildlife habitats. IAR returns rehabilitated animals to the wild while also providing permanent sanctuary for those that cannot fend for themselves. Its work includes cutting free and caring for captive bears in India and Armenia, rescuing and rehabilitating orangutans and other primates in Indonesia and treating injured and orphaned howler monkeys in Costa Rica. IAR strives to educate the public in the humane treatment of all animals and the preservation of the natural environment. International Animal Rescue has offices in the United Kingdom, United States, India, Indonesia and Malta.
The Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre is a wildlife centre located roughly 25 miles (40 km) by road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The centre was established in 1995 and with an area of over 6,000 acres of protected regenerating forest, this is the largest zoo in Cambodia. Since 2001, PTWRC has been run by the government institution of Cambodian Forestry Administration in partnership with an environmental non-profit organization called Wildlife Alliance. Wildlife Alliance animal husbandry specialists, veterinarians, and care takers assist in the feeding and care of animals and operations. PTWRC currently houses over 1,200 rescued animals from 102 species including endangered Asian elephants, tigers, Pileated gibbon, Siamese crocodile, Malayan sun bears, among many others. Many of the species are listed as Endangered or Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Alex Cearns is an Australian photographer who is known for her pet, animal, and wildlife photography. She is the founder of Houndstooth Studio and has won more than 350 awards for business, philanthropy and animal photography, including the Best Canine Photographer in Australia in 2011 and 2013. She is the official photographer for the Dogs' Refuge Home of WA and has been featured in numerous books and magazines as well as the television show The Couch.
Pod Volunteer is a non-governmental volunteering organisation with an associated registered charity based in the United Kingdom.
Wildlife SOS (WSOS) is a conservation non-profit organisation in India, established in 1995 with the primary objective of rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife in distress, and preserving India's natural heritage. It is currently one of the largest wildlife organisations in South Asia.
Four Paws is a global animal welfare organisation based in Vienna, Austria. It focuses on improving the living conditions of animals under direct human influence, by revealing suffering, rescuing animals in need, and protecting them.
