Caesar was a living, breathing Chinese factory. For most of her life, the brown bear was kept locked up in a tiny, rusty cage. While in the cage, according to the Dodo, she wore a metal “jacket” around her midsection that kept a catheter inserted into her gallbladder. The catheter allowed Caesar's bile to flow into a container where it could be readily collected for use in traditional Chinese medicine.
Caesar was able to escape her real live horror show in 2004 thanks to Animals Asia, an organization headquartered in Hong Kong that operates bear sanctuaries in China and Vietnam. She now lives at a sanctuary in Chengdu, and by all accounts is enjoying her new life.
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Animals Asia wrote in a post documenting Caesar’s progress that she is reveling in her new found freedom. “She has now spent a dozen happy years with Animals Asia in Chengdu, enjoying swims in the sunshine as well as indulging her natural digging instincts — particularly when the weather cools in the autumn," Animals Asia said.
Though Caesar can’t get back the years she lost dying a slow death at the bear farm where she was imprisoned, the future looks bright for her.
"Caesar's scars have all but disappeared and today she is an astonishingly beautiful (and formidable) bear," Robinson said, noting that she's "in robustly good health" despite her years in the bile cages. "Weighing in at a humongous 271 kgs [598 lbs], Caesar is all muscle and all woman!"
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