Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) is a Hong Kong-based charity that seeks to end cruelty to animals in Asia.
The AAF was founded in 1998 by Jill Robinson, who felt compelled to create the organisation after learning of the plight of the Asiatic Black Bear known as the “Moon Bear” because of the yellow crescent on its chest. Moon Bears are farmed throughout Asia for their bile, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. The methods used in bear bile farming involve bears living up to 25 years in crush cages with metal catheters inserted into their abdomens for bile extraction or open wounds through which the bile drips.
Animals Asia Foundation has been profiled on CNN, NPR, Animal Planet, the BBC, the National Geographic Channel, as well as in print media in several countries. Founder Jill Robinson has received numerous distinctions for her commitment to animal welfare including the 2002 Genesis Award, the Reader's Digest Hero for Today Award and an MBE from the Queen of the United Kingdom. The Foundation's headquarters is in Hong Kong with additional offices, a sanctuary and an educational centre in China, Germany, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
In February 2009, Animals Asia rescued a dozen malnourished, diseased Asiatic Black Bears from abusive bile-harvesting farms in southwest China. The bears were given to Animals Asia under an agreement made in 2000 with the government to save sick bears from state and illegal farms. The animals went to the foundation's Moon Bear Rescue Center outside Chengdu, which has handled 260 freed bears since the agreement was signed. The issue further expanded in 2012 when Guizhentang Pharmaceutical company tried to enter the Shenzhen stock exchange.
Famous quotes containing the words animals, asia and/or foundation:
“Shall we never have done with that cliché, so stupid that it could only be human, about the sympathy of animals for man when he is unhappy? Animals love happiness almost as much as we do. A fit of crying disturbs them, they’ll sometimes imitate sobbing, and for a moment they’ll reflect our sadness. But they flee unhappiness as they flee fever, and I believe that in the long run they are capable of boycotting it.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again.”
—Anne Frank (1929–1945)