Precious Baby Sun Bear

Bowie is one of the thousands of sun bears in danger of being commercially hunted.

In this particular case, the reason for the hunting is not known, but generally sun bears are killed to either: prevent crop damage, settle qualms about bears living near villages, or acquire sun bear cubs for the pet trade. The bear population has also been significantly reduced due to the commercial exploitation of these animals for the grotesquely invasive bear bile farming industry which painfully extracts bile from animals’ gallbladders for medicinal use.

Local hunters in one area of Thailand even estimated that 50 percent of the sun bear population has been reduced in the past 20 years! In addition to these dangers, sun bears also have to deal with major losses to their habitat. In the past 30 years, large-scale deforestation throughout Southeast Asia has left sun bears with but a sliver of the amount of land they used to rely on.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/sun-bear-rescued-from-hunters-gets-second-chance/?utm_source=Green+Monster+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=b6a0b45edb-NEWSLETTER_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbf62ddf34-b6a0b45edb-106919241