Throughout South East Asia bears are kept in cramped cages and “milked” for their bile which is in high demand for its supposed medicinal powers. The practice has recently been made illegal, which means the authorities have been able to free some bears – but they have have to be looked after since they cannot be released back into the wild.
Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus), India. (C) WWF-Canon / Martin HARVEYAsh and Aleisha raise money for a new enclosure in Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam in their own unique way – by entering an Afro-Caribbean dance contest as a ‘dare-for-a-bear’ fundraiser.
The pair then travel to Cat Tien to hand over equipment and see for themselves the project to allow freed bile bears to live the rest of their lives as normally as possible.
Extinction Sucks is a unique co-production between WWF and Babelgum to bring high-quality conservation programming to web audiences. It's thought to be the first time that an online video channel has commissioned original, full-length wildlife shows specifically for the internet. The series is being broadcast over a six week run on www.panda.org and www.babelgum.com. Other programmes see Ash and Aleisha raise funds for WWF programmes protecting elephants in India and rhinos in Nepal threatened by poachers, and marine turtles in Queensland.