Ricky Gervais has donated £150,000 to Animals Asia at a crucial point in the charity’s campaign to end bear bile farming in Vietnam. The gift came from proceeds connected to his Mortality comedy tour and forms part of a much larger £2.43 million distribution to 22 animal charities.
Animals Asia announced the donation in December 2025, saying that around 150 bears were still living on Vietnam’s remaining bile farms. The organization is working with government authorities, communities and bear owners to move those animals into sanctuary care.
What Gervais actually donated
Some social posts describe the gift as $180,000. The documented allocation was £150,000, which was commonly reported at the time as approximately $200,000, depending on the exchange rate.
Gervais announced that he was giving £2.43 million across 22 animal-welfare organizations after his 2024–2025 Mortality tour. Four charities—including Animals Asia—were listed to receive £150,000 each. Seventeen others were allocated £100,000, while £132,000 was designated for Nowzad.
The funds came from additional profit associated with premium or “platinum” ticket sales. Gervais has previously used higher-priced ticket categories to raise money for animal causes while discouraging ticket resellers from capturing that premium.
Animals Asia thanked him publicly and said the contribution arrived as its long-running campaign entered one of its most difficult stages.
Why the remaining 150 bears cannot simply be taken
Vietnam outlawed hunting bears and extracting their bile in 1992, but bears already registered and microchipped could remain in private ownership. That legacy created a legal and practical obstacle: Animals Asia cannot enter private properties and remove the animals without consent.
The charity says every one of its more than 290 bear rescues in Vietnam has depended on building relationships with owners and persuading them to surrender the animals. Cooperation with local communities and government agencies is therefore central to the final phase.
This is why the donation should not be described as a transaction that instantly “rescues 150 bears.” It supports an ongoing program involving owner negotiations, transportation, veterinary treatment, sanctuary construction, food, enrichment and lifelong care.
Animals Asia’s strategy includes completing the Bach Ma Bear Rescue Centre, rescuing the remaining bears as they are released, reducing demand for bile and ensuring that commercial exploitation does not return.
The final stage of a decades-long campaign
Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid, a substance used in some traditional medicine. On farms, Asiatic black bears—widely known as moon bears because of the pale crescent on their chests—have endured prolonged confinement and repeated extraction procedures.
Animals Asia says it has rescued nearly 300 bears from Vietnamese bile farms over 25 years and established two sanctuaries on land provided by the government. Forty-six of Vietnam’s 63 provinces are now described as free of bile bears.
Recent progress continues. The charity reported rescuing two moon bears in May 2026 when another farm closed, followed by three more in June as an additional province became bile-bear free. Those individual transfers show both the promise and the gradual nature of the work.
Gervais’s donation gives the campaign substantial support and renewed public attention. The most accurate measure of its impact, however, will come over time: each negotiated surrender, each safe transport and each bear receiving the specialist care needed for the rest of its life.
Sources
- Animals Asia: statement thanking Ricky Gervais
- Animals Asia: Free the Final Bears campaign and current figures
- RTÉ: Gervais’s £2.43 million charity distribution
- Vegan Food & Living: allocation breakdown
