Free the bears!
on Oly's Cambodia Blog (Cambodia), 27/Aug/2011 10:36, 34 days ago
“How we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other”.So Ghandi got there before me, butI’ve always believed that how we care for fellow creatures is a good indication of how civilized we are (or are not) as a society.On this measure, Cambodia has a head start through its buddhist heritage, with a sense of respect for other living creatures, even if they no longer fear being reincarnated as a dung beetle.When Cambodians hear me insisting on just veggies with my rice they often quiz me.My view - that it is cruel and unnecessary to kill animals to eat them– is met with uncomprehending stares:“But cow intestine taste sogood!”.I learned to say“You know, like monk?”, and somehow it makes sense.(It’s a bit like when I go for an evening stroll and my friends press me to hop on the back of their moto to get there quicker – explaining that I like to walk confirms me as a crazy barrang, but somehow “You know, for sport?” does the trick).My sense is that Cambodians are practical in their relationships with animals, with compassion (squeemishness if you like) repressed from a young age.Basically, if a beast is useful to them in some way it will not be mistreated– not because cruelty is wrong, just because it makes sense in order to continue the benefit.Thus water buffalo are well tended given their usefulness for plowing rice fields and pulling carts– but only as long as they work or reproduce.Pigs are well fed as they grow and breed, but are imprisoned and later killed (or transported in a bamboo cage for someone else to do the dirty work).Dogs are tolerated as they help deter unwanted visitors (both real and imagined), but they live outside, scavenge food, menace visiting white men, and are routinely slapped or beaten by their host family.The same goes for wild animals– they are valued only in as much as they provide a material benefit.Once the national animal, the kouprey (grey ox) was killed for meat.It is now extinct.Elephants were only useful if tamed, and again are now rare.The main hope for survival of dolphins in the Mekong is if locals can make money from them through tourism.Cambodia still has a richly abundant animal life, and is home to 14 globally endangered species, including the Asiatic black (moon) bear, Malaysian (sun) bear, Asian elephant, Indochinese tiger and the Pileated gibbon.Take the bears:these impressive creatures are threatened because until recently their value has been seen here only a commodity to sell for public entertainment or private pets, for meat (paw stew anyone?), or– even harder to stomach – for farmers to cage them, insert metal catheters into their gall bladders, and sell their bile as dubious ‘medicine’.Thankfully there is now a sanctuary for bears (along with elephants, snakes, parrots, minor birds and very scary tigers) at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, 40km south of Phnom Penh.As a leaving present for Katja we both volunteered to be‘bear keepers’ for a day.What a fantastic experience!We made up the feed (green beans, biscuits and jam mashed up in a bamboo pole and stuffed with morning glory leaves), and got to hide them in the enclosures to give the bears a stimulating search for food.We then got right up close to the mix of sun bears and Asiatic black bears, learning their different ages and personalities.They’re beautiful and look so cuddly – though I wouldn’t like to get too near as they have serious claws!We were fortunate to see a baby, which was of course adorable– but we also loved the dark black adults with the distinctive ‘v’ marking, and an older, more orangey female.A real effort has been made to create an interesting environment in the enclosures, not only with forest and plants, but even pools and hammocks!Thanks to the sanctuary, these wonderful creatures will be safe from cruel practices, and a release programme begins soon in Cambodia’s western Cardomom mountains, working carefully with the local communities.I thought it was great, and there were plenty of Cambodian visitors enjoying it too.But I couldn’t help thinking that the reasons I valued the bears – for their beauty, but also what I see as the intrinsic importance of preserving the country’s natural fauna – may not be shared by many others here.Rather, I think they are valued more because of pressure from foreign aid organizations, or as western visitors like us pay good money to see them.Put bluntly, they are only in the sanctuary as they are worth more there than for pets, meat or bile.Returning to Ghandi’s point, I feel the moral relativism about animals is also applied to people here.I often feel colleagues at my hospital treat other humans no better or worse than other animals.If they treat them well it is because it is better for themselves to do so.Is it going too far to suggest that that nurses treat patients because they are told to, and because they risk reprimand if they don’t, but not through compassion to relieve the suffering of fellow beings?So I think the bear sanctuary gives really important hope– if future generations can see animals now being treated with care and compassion, just maybe it will encourage them to treat each other in the same way too.