Page 5 - Animals Asia Review 2011

End Bear Farming

Portal power unleashed

The power of the internet was farming in March, the public
highlighted in 2011, when response was overwhelming. The

China’s internet-savvy citizens two-hour chat, which included

(or netizens) took to microblogs Animals Asia’s Project Director
in unprecedented numbers to Boris Chiao and our Ambassador

voice their concerns about bear singer Karen Mok (pictured),

farming.attracted over 4,600 comments
— and in just one day, a whopping
When China’s biggest portal,
92,321 people signed the online
Sina.com, hosted an online
petition calling for an end to bear
discussion about ending bearfarming.

Sun Li speaks out for the bears

More than 400 people attended speeches by Sun Li and Jill

the event — which called for an Robinson, with a moving

end to bear farming — including introduction by members of Sun
other celebrities, such as Wei Li’s fan club, who sang a beautiful

Xue and Xie Zheng, and many song accompanied by our very

representatives from the media own “Moonie” (pictured here with
and animal-welfare groups SunLi).
In April, the amazing Capital
and, of course, some delighted
Library in Beijing was the venue The group, Low Carbon Earth,
members of Sun Li’s Chinese fan
for an exhibition of paintings of club.had helped to organise students
moon bears as well as an exciting to paint the beautiful oil paintings

event starring Chinese celebrity Hosted by famous anchorman of our bears — and also one that

and superstar, Sun Li.Zhang Bin, the event sawfeatured Sun Li, which we gave to
her during the event as a gift.

Outrage at bear bile company

In February 2011, China’s outraged members of the and microblogs were looded

third-largest producer of bear Chinese public when it was with comments, and animal-
bile, Guizhentang, faced an revealed it was planning to list on welfare groups around China

unprecedented backlash fromthe stock market. The companydemonstrated their opposition to

wanted to raise the listing.
funds to increase
What encourages us most is
the number of
that this wasn’t a campaign
bears it held on
its farm from 470 led by us or any other group. It
was a spontaneous outcry from
to 1,200.
many thousands of people from

Sites like Sina around China.
Weibo (China’s
The listing had not gone ahead
hugely popular
by end-2011.
version of Twitter)

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