Musician Rick Wakeman performs concert for 150 rescued bears in Vietnam — Asharq Al-Awsat

British musician Rick Wakeman performed a piano concert for 150 rescued Himalayan bears at the Animals Asia sanctuary in Tam Dao National Park in Vietnam. The former Yes member played a Yamaha grand piano outdoors and wrote new compositions especially for the animals.

As Asharq Al-Awsat reports, the performance was intended to draw attention to the problem of keeping bears in captivity to extract bile, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. Wakeman said he hoped the animals would come up to the sanctuary fence and listen to the melodic music.

Supporting the sanctuary since 2016

Wakeman said he has supported rescued bears since 2016 and recently adopted another one, a 20-month-old male. The musician noted that at the sanctuary, the animals undergo rehabilitation after years of being kept in cramped cages, where some of them could not even turn around.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Animals Asia founder and CEO Jill Robinson said the organization appreciates Wakeman's support. According to her, the musician wrote music for the bears, and sanctuary staff were expecting to see the animals' reaction during the performance.

Bears on bile farms

The article notes that bile is extracted from bears' gallbladders using a needle. Such animals are kept in poor conditions, including in China and Vietnam. In Vietnam, this practice is banned, but some bears are still kept in cramped cages on former bile farms.

Wakeman called for speeding up the transfer of the animals to the sanctuary. According to him, 125 bears remain in cages on such farms, and four of them die every month.