Poachers in Cambodia killed this Sun Bear's mother and took the cub into captivity for the bear bile industry. Fortunately for the cub, it found its way into the hands of villagers who gave her to the local Free the Bears charity.

People in Vietnam are allowed to keep bears microchipped in 2005 but it is against the law to extract/sell bile or poach bears from the wild. All these bears were visibly too young to be microchipped in 2005. This bear owner in Nghe An Province admitted to trafficking these young bears as 1kg cubs from neighbouring Laos. International trade in a species that have CITES Appendix I protection breaks top-level international legislation.

Vietnam's Deputy Agriculture Minister states "we don’t have enough intelligence and evidence to deal with the crimes" despite 95% of farmers admitting to extracting bile in a 2018 survey. With Tuan Bendixsen from Animals Asia revealing “video evidence obtained by anyone else is not submittable in court” frustration is high. The Conference on IWT does raise awareness but Rosa Indenbaum from TRAFFIC says this is "driving trade into less visible places" making the industry "storefront cleansed."