A concert for an unusual audience
Rick Wakeman sat at a piano. His audience did not applaud. They were bears. One hundred and fifty moon bears, to be precise, gathered inside their large sanctuary enclosure in Vietnam’s Tam Dao National Park. The performer was the 77 year old musician, famous for his virtuosic keyboard solos and flamboyant stage presence with the progressive rock band Yes before embarking on a long solo career. He played on 24 September. He later said he felt ‘incredibly honoured’. It was a profoundly strange event, a collision of worlds where a celebrity from the peak of western stadium rock met the quiet survivors of an Asian black market trade. The bears are the fortunate ones. They now live at a sanctuary operated by the charity Animals Asia, rescued from a life defined by extreme cruelty and chronic pain. Their new home is a forest. Their old one was a cage.
This concert was not for their entertainment. It was a beacon. The performance was designed to illuminate a dark and persistent industry that continues in the shadows of the country’s rapid modernisation and economic growth. These 150 animals were saved from so called 'bile farms'. Hundreds of other bears across Vietnam are still imprisoned on them today. They are kept in cages, often so small the animals cannot turn around or stand on all fours, suffering through a brutal and painful process to have bile extracted from their gallbladders. The substance is then sold for use in some forms of traditional medicine. This practice is illegal in Vietnam. It has been for decades. Yet it persists, a stubborn illicit economy that pits organised criminals against government authorities.
The strange spectacle in the national park was therefore a calculated act. It was an exercise in soft power. The quiet piano notes, played for a silent, furry audience, were intended to create a media echo loud enough to be heard in the corridors of power in Hanoi, and in government offices around the world. It was a story too odd for news editors to ignore. This performance forces an uncomfortable question about why, after years of campaigning and official prohibition, such a rescue mission is still necessary at all. The presence of a western rock star highlights a problem of organised crime. It brings diplomacy into play. It is about a nation trying to reconcile its cultural past with the demands of its international standing. The music has stopped. The problem has not. The bears are still waiting.
The cruel economy of bile
The product is bear bile. It is a digestive fluid. For centuries, practitioners of some traditional medicines have prized the substance for its active ingredient, ursodeoxycholic acid, believing it can treat fevers, liver disease and a host of other ailments. The bears used are mostly Asiatic black bears. They are called moon bears. This is for the pale crescent of fur on their chests. A synthetic, effective and cheap version of the acid is widely available as a pharmaceutical drug. It has been for decades. But a stubborn belief in the potency of the 'natural' product, drawn from a powerful wild animal, sustains a brutal and illegal trade across several parts of Asia. The supposed remedy requires immense suffering. The bears pay that price.
The farms are hidden prisons. They are not farms. Animals are confined for their entire lives in crush cages, sometimes built from scaffolding poles, often so small they prevent almost any movement at all. They cannot stand. They cannot turn. Many bears have their teeth and claws removed to make them easier to handle. The extraction itself is crude and invasive. Farmers might use a permanent catheter surgically implanted into the gallbladder, or a technique known simply as 'free drip', where a wound is kept permanently open with a tube. Both methods cause massive infection, chronic pain, and immense psychological distress to the animals, who can endure this cycle of torture for twenty years or more. Their muscles waste away. Their bones become weak. Many develop liver cancer, go blind, or die slowly from peritonitis.
This is a shadow economy. It is run by criminals. While the practice is most associated with China, Vietnam remains a significant hub where hundreds of bears are still trapped on these illicit farms, despite a government ban on bile extraction being in place since 1992. The law is one thing. Enforcement is another. The farms are often in remote, rural areas, making them difficult for authorities to locate and shut down. Powerful criminal syndicates control the trade, exploiting rural poverty by paying local families to house the animals and taking the product to sell on the black market at home and abroad. It is a lucrative, high margin business built entirely on animal suffering, and dismantling it involves confronting not just individual keepers but the organised networks that protect them. The fight is slow. It is difficult. It is not over.
Hanoi's long, quiet war
Hanoi's official position is clear. The government is against this trade. In 1992, Vietnam banned the extraction of bear bile, and in 2005 it signed an agreement to phase out farming completely. These were not empty gestures. They were signals from a country eager to integrate with the global economy, attract investment, and shed its postwar image. The laws were supposed to prove its credentials as a modern, responsible nation. They failed. Three decades after the first ban, hundreds of bears remain in cages.
This gap between law and reality is a political choice. It is a choice born of pragmatism. The central government in Hanoi presides over a vast and varied country, where its authority is often mediated through layers of local power. Shutting down the bile farms would require a huge, expensive, and politically risky campaign of state coercion against its own citizens in provinces far from the capital. This is not a war Hanoi wants to fight. It has other priorities. Economic growth, national security, and the careful management of its relationship with Beijing command far more attention and resources than the fate of a few hundred caged animals. The state has limited capacity. It picks its battles.
Local interests are powerful. The trade, though illegal, is woven into the economies of some rural communities, with criminal networks providing the capital and the market for the bile. A sudden crackdown would disrupt these local arrangements, potentially creating unemployment and resentment in areas the government prefers to keep quiet. Officials on the ground may be underfunded, overwhelmed, or simply paid to look the other way. Corruption oils the wheels of the trade. It keeps the cages full. Confronting this system directly would mean confronting not just poor farmers but the powerful, well connected individuals who run the networks and profit the most. It is easier for the government to proceed slowly.
The solution, for Hanoi, is a slow war of attrition. It is a war outsourced to others. By partnering with non governmental organisations like Animals Asia, the government delegates the difficult and expensive work of rescuing bears and persuading farmers to give them up. This strategy allows the state to maintain its official stance against bile farming while avoiding a politically costly confrontation. It is a quiet, incremental approach which saves face internationally without upsetting delicate balances of power at home. Progress is measured in single rescues. The goal is eventual eradication, but on a timeline that suits the Vietnamese state, not the animals suffering in the cages.
The soft power of a rock star
The image is deliberate. It is strange. A 77 year old man, a titan of 1970s progressive rock, plays piano in the Vietnamese heat. His audience is a crowd of 150 rescued moon bears. The event, held at Animals Asia’s sanctuary in Tam Dao National Park, was not for the animals' musical education. It was a calculated piece of theatre. Its true audience was thousands of miles away. The concert was designed to be a spectacle. A spectacle generates news.
This is the modern mechanics of soft power. It is a kind of gentle coercion. A story featuring Rick Wakeman, the keyboardist from Yes, is a story that editors will run, and it provides a simple, compelling hook into a complex and grim subject. The resulting media coverage, appearing in outlets from the Guardian to the Evening Standard on 24 September, creates a narrative. That narrative is not one the Vietnamese government controls. It is a story of persistent animal cruelty in a nation trying to brand itself as a modern economic success. This creates a reputational problem for Hanoi. It is a small problem. But it is a persistent one. International embarrassment can be a powerful diplomatic lever, encouraging a government that prefers quiet consensus to act more decisively than it otherwise would.
An anonymous NGO official is easy to ignore. A rock star is not. Animals Asia knows this. The strategy uses celebrity to bypass public indifference and the complexities of policy debates, creating a moment of pure human (and animal) interest. Most people will never read a white paper on the economics of illegal wildlife farming in rural Vietnam. They will, however, click a headline about a famous musician playing for bears. Rick Wakeman brings a specific value. He connects the cause to a generation in the West with a history of activism and perhaps the financial means to support a charity. The man who wrote keyboard parts for 'Roundabout' becomes an ambassador for an issue that would otherwise remain invisible. It is strategic communication. The man is the message.
This single performance is not the endgame. It is a tactic. The goal of the concert was not simply to raise money, although that is always a welcome side effect for any non governmental organisation. The real purpose was to create a media spike. It puts the bears back on the agenda. The publicity serves as a reminder to partners within the Vietnamese government that the world is watching their progress on eradicating the last bile farms. This international attention provides political cover for officials in Hanoi who want to act, strengthening their position against powerful local interests and criminal networks. The concert was a temporary event. A brief moment of surreal art. The pressure it was designed to generate is meant to be permanent.
What comes after the cages?
Closing a farm is a victory. It is not the end. The final stage of this campaign involves locating and freeing the several hundred moon bears still believed to be held in illegal captivity across Vietnam. This is a delicate and often dangerous operation, requiring careful negotiation, legal authority, and the logistical capacity to move large, distressed animals from remote farms to sanctuaries like the one in Tam Dao National Park. Each rescue is a start. A new life. And a new set of problems for its rescuers.
The problems are mostly financial. These animals are broken. Years of confinement and repeated, painful bile extractions leave them with chronic health issues, from infected gall bladders and liver cancer to broken teeth and missing limbs. They need lifetime care. The cost is immense. A rescued bear might live for another thirty years, requiring specialised food, complex veterinary treatment, and a large, secure enclosure. Animals Asia must fund this for every single one of the 150 bears already at Tam Dao, and for every new animal that arrives through its gates. This is a multimillion pound, multidecade commitment built one rescue at a time. The piano concert helps. It does not solve the fundamental equation.
There is also the human cost. What becomes of the farmers? The bile industry, though illegal and cruel, provides an income in some of Vietnam’s poorer, rural areas. Simply confiscating the bears bankrupts the families who own them, potentially creating resentment and driving them into other forms of organised crime. A permanent solution cannot be built solely on enforcement. It must address the economic reality that made people turn to bile farming in the first place. The government in Hanoi and its partners know that a successful eradication programme requires offering alternative livelihoods, a complex and expensive task of social engineering that goes far beyond animal welfare. This is not easy. It is essential.
Solving this problem requires a three part strategy. The bears must be saved. The law must be enforced. The people must be given a different way to live. This complexity is why a practice banned decades ago still persists in the shadows, a difficult knot of criminality, tradition, and rural poverty. Unpicking it requires more than just raids and rescues. It requires a slow, patient process of building new economic structures to replace the old ones. The final chapter of the bile bear story in Vietnam is not just about the animals. It is also about the people.
The last few hundred bears
The final push is now under way. It is a slow, methodical campaign. The goal is to find and rescue every last bear held illegally for bile in Vietnam, a mission built on a unique partnership between the state and a charity. In 2017, the Vietnamese government signed a memorandum of understanding with Animals Asia. This formalised their joint ambition to end the trade for good. The state brings its authority. It brings the power of the law.
This collaboration is critical. The government can enforce the ban, raid the farms, and confiscate the animals that are, in effect, evidence of a crime. Animals Asia provides the logistical spine for the entire operation. It has the specialised teams, the custom built transport cages, and the destination sanctuary at Tam Dao National Park ready to receive the animals. It is a delicate process. Each rescue is a small, complex military style manoeuvre requiring careful planning to ensure the safety of both the bears and the humans involved. The farms are often hidden. Their owners can be hostile.
Several hundred bears remain. That is the official estimate. They are scattered in small, unregistered holdings across the country, making them difficult to locate and even harder to access. Closing these final farms is a painstaking process of intelligence gathering, negotiation, and, where necessary, legal force. The hurdles are immense. Some farmers resist, refusing to surrender animals they have kept for decades, while others simply disappear with their bears when they hear officials are coming. The race is on to get to them before they are killed for their parts or moved deeper into the black market. Rick Wakeman’s concert brought attention. The real work happens quietly, far from any stage, one farm at a time.
Sources. Guardian World: Rick Wakeman performs piano concert to 150 rescued moon bears in Vietnam. Evening Standard: Rick Wakeman ‘incredibly honoured’ after performing to 150 ‘music loving’ bears.
Analysis. Drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed above and reviewed by an editor before publication. Jnews links to the organisations it writes about.
