Chinese basketball player Yao Ming threw his support behind the animal rights movement by visiting one of the bear sanctuaries in Sichuan province.
The 7-foot-6 (2.29-metre) former NBA centre clipped the nails of an anesthetised bear and shook its paw, then strolled around the facility with his wife, looking at the bear enclosures and a bear graveyard.
Chinese basketball star Yao Ming came back to Chengdu city on Saturday just one month after he released a giant panda to the wild, but this time his mission is for the protection of bears, in particular moon bears.
Yao Ming and his wife Ye Li visited the Animals Asia Foundation China Bear Rescue Centre near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, currently home to approximately 160 rescued moon bears.
The bears, also known as Asiatic black bears, were rescued from bear bile farms generally notorious for cramped conditions and cruel treatment.
Yao, the 7-foot-6 (2.29-meter) former NBA centre clipped the nails of an anesthetised bear and shook its paw, then strolled around the facility with his wife, looking at the bear enclosures and a bear graveyard.
Yao has also campaigned against the weekly slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million sharks to feed demand for shark fin soup, a traditional Chinese delicacy.
The practice is taking some of the species close to extinction.
And now the Chinese basketball star is speaking of the need to protect moon bears from harm.
Moon bears have been exploited for the bile produced in their gall bladders on bear bile farms throughout China for the use of making traditional Chinese medicine.
Recently, the issue received an unprecedented amount of coverage, after one domestic Pharmaceutical Company desire to publicly list their company drew outrage provoked outrage in China.
SNTV