QUEST Community Science Blog

Why do Moon Bears need you to knit?

Once upon a time in the far away land of Hong Kong, a woman named Jill Robinson discovered that beautiful moon bears where being held captive in tiny cages in China and farmed (through their bellies) as a living source for bear bile, which is used in traditional medicines. She decided to do something heroic about the issue and founded the Animals Asia Foundation. Animals Asia became a thriving organization, dedicated to ending cruelty and restoring respect for all animals in Asia.

For many moon bears, their stories have a happy ending. Jill and the AAF crew have rescued 500 bears, releasing them into their idyllic sanctuary in Chengdu China. Newly rescued moon bears tentatively step on fresh grass, slowly learn to climb, socialize, scamper through bamboo, wrestle and eat honey, finally becoming a real bear.

Of course, the bears can’t go from cages to sanctuary directly; they must endure urgent veterinary care and often surgery to remove the bile equipment from their bodies. Bears must be anaesthetized to receive this care and it is important that they stay warm and comfortable during the process. Just as with humans, the bears’ extremities are the first things to get cold and that is where knitters on the West Coast of the United States, worlds away, come in. They must knit giant bear mittens!

The Oakland Zoo is hoping to have some mittens knitted in order to hand them directly to Jill Robinson on May 21, when she speaks at the Oakland Zoo. We will have a knitting party at the zoo on Friday, May 9, from 1pm-3pm. However, mittens can be turned in to the Oakland Zoo at anytime and mailed to China in the hopes that the thousands of moon bears still in captivity will need them soon.

The mitten pattern allows for several weights of yarn and includes instructions for knitting in the round with one circular, two circulars, double-pointed needles, or knitting flat. Finished mittens are about 7″ wide (14″ circumference) with a 12″ foot and 6″ cuff. The pattern is intended to be beginner level, but if you have any questions about the techniques mentioned, you might find the website knittinghelp.com helpful.

Click here for the pattern and try it yourself:

bearbooties.pdf

The Oakland Zoo will be working with Article Pract in Oakland on more mittens for bears.

Find out more about Moon Bears and their plight, and meet Jill Robinson on Wednesday, May 21 at 6:30 for the lecture entitle, “From Prison to Paradise: Rescuing the Endangered Asian Moon Bear. Bring the family to Bear Day at the Oakland Zoo on Saturday, May 17.

Some of this information is thanks to Twisted, the Knit Shop in Oregon who is helping the Oregon zoo knit mittens.


Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

Ting explores Halloween enrichment. No, that is
not a real giant candy corn. Zoo guests and especially young students often ask us how we get our animals, imagining myself or a zoo keeper running after zebras in the savanna sun with nets and ropes. Of course, this is quite illegal these days and I would never work for an institution that did such things. Accredited zoos acquire animals through a variety of means, from purchasing an individual from another zoo, to breeding them on-site, to rescuing an animal in need of a home or even finding a hedgehog in a Tupperware dish outside the door to your office (yes, this happened).

If I were to take you on a tour of our animals with a focus on where they came from, you would be amazed. Our tigers came from a circus, our juvenile lions from an illegal situation in Texas, our rabbits from a humane society, our pot bellied pigs from a family discarding a pet. Each tells a story of animal welfare or conservation – and it is this aspect of the Oakland Zoo that I am most proud of. In many ways, we are a sanctuary.

Ting naps in straw atop her tree house,
her huge, green and peaceful enclosure
in background. One of the most telling stories is that of Ting Ting, our Sun Bear from Borneo. Ting had not had an easy life. She was captured by poachers as a cub in her native country of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. They likely killed her mother to sell parts of her body on the black market and captured the young cub to sell as a pet. If so, she likely spent the first few years of her life in various homes, alone, in small enclosures and without appropriate food and care. Eventually Ting was confiscated by government officials when she was approximately three years old. She was put into an over crowded rescue facility where she spent the next six years. Like many wild animals, once in captivity, Ting had lost her natural fear of people and had not developed the necessary skills a bear needs to survive. Ting was too dangerous and ill-prepared to return to the wild. Due to the stress of these poor captive environments Ting developed stereotypic (abnormal repetitive behavior) pacing. This behavior develops to alleviate stress but typically continues as a habit even when the stress is gone.

In 1996 and again in 2000, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums coordinated two importations for a total of 20 Malaysian Sun Bears of the Bornean subspecies to help relieve the over crowded conditions of the rescue facility and to maintain our captive population. Ting Ting was sent to the San Diego Zoo in 2000 where she lived for six years, before she came to her home with us at the Oakland Zoo at the end of 2006. We plan on seeing her through to the end of her life, giving her tree houses to nap in, enrichment to play with, honey to eat, a pool to catch fish in, room to roam in her giant enclosure and eventually, a friend. It has been a long journey for Ting and we are glad she is home for good. We hope her story inspires guests to find out more about Sunbears and explore other conservation issues, as well as look at the role of zoos with fresh eyes.

To hear more about the plight of Sunbears and biodiversity in all of Borneo, please join us for a lecture on December 12th with Cynthia Ong and Heather Pierson of LEAP (www.leapspiral.org). Check www.oaklandzoo.org for details.

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo. Cathy Keyes, Sunbear Keeper also contributed to this post.

latitude: 37.7502, longitude: -122.148