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Bear Plays In Water For First Time Since Being Saved From Bile Farm

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A video of a bear playing in a pool of water for the first time since being rescued from a bile farm is going viral.

Tuffy was freed from a bile farm in September after spending many years in a tiny cage, according to Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based charity group that helps end animal cruelty to wild and endangered species.

Bile farms keep bears in captivity to harvest their bile, which is used by some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners.

Reported by the animal activist group's website, Tuffy's gall bladder had to be removed, he had numerous gallstones, three fractured teeth, and painfully dry cracked paws.

The vet team worked hard to rehabilitate the bear after numerous surgeries caused by being kept in a tiny cage for so many years.

"The cracked paws are common to bile farm bears as they only walk on bars, not grass. Dehydration is likely to have contributed to this too. So for his carers to see him take to the pool so quickly after he first became ready to face the outdoors was an amazing moment," Animals Asia Bear Manager Louise Ellis said.

"Coming from years of little or no water, for Tuffy this must feel like a true oasis after being parched and in pain for so long," Ellis added. "It must have felt like such a relief to have the freedom to splash around in the water after only being able to stand on the hard metal bars of the bile farm cage."

Tuffy loved the feeling of being outdoors for the first time in so long, according to Ellis, that he refused to go back to his den at night, and chose to sleep outdoors under the stars.

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