Flagging a story with exceptional footage and acclaimed UK wildlife biologist Dan O’Neill (BBC One‘s Tiger Island, and YouTube’s How To Live On Earth with Benedict Cumberbatch) available for interview this week.
Dan is available all this week before 3pm UK time (9pm in Laos) – or available in person from next Tuesday in London.
In Southeast Asia’s largest ever bear farm rescue, conservation charity Free the Bears and Laos authorities have freed 27 moon bears from an illegal bile farm in Laos that had been operating under the guise of a zoo.
The bears, taken from the wild as cubs, their mothers likely killed, spent years crammed into tiny metal cages, drained of the bile in their gallbladders for traditional medicine, despite there being no medical need for it.
This week, after completing quarantine, the first of them have stepped onto grass for the very first time, feeling sunshine, foraging and climbing trees for the first time in their lives. Dan and the team are witnessing and filming the bears enjoying their newfound freedom.
All 27 survived, and we have extensive, broadcast-quality footage of their first moments in the forest. Rescuers also discovered the farm had been built to eventually hold up to 200 bears, exposing the industrial scale of the criminal operation before it was shut down.
It follows the world’s largest ever rescue of threatened bear cubs in 2025, when 16 moon bear cubs were seized from a single wildlife trafficker’s home.
Available for interview is wildlife biologist and broadcaster Dan O’Neill who can speak about the rescue they’ve done and the wider trade.
If interested in an interview email Padraig Prendergast – info@paudie.co.uk or +44(0)78 54263880
Dan is available all this week before 3pm UK time (9pm in Laos) – or available in person from next Tuesday in London.
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