We Need a Miracle

[Jeanette McDermott]

Art by Lupe Fiacre

ATTENTION ALL ANIMAL ARTISTS: Without you the media won't tell the story of Miracle. She needs a face, an identity. Her story awes and amazes. Read on ...

Miracle was born on a bear bile breeding farm in the spring of 2006. The farm is run by Mr. and Mrs. Lee, an aging Korean couple. Bear bile farming made them rich, but they are getting old and ill and don't want to continue the bear bile business. They want someone to buy all of their bears so they can retire. The bile farm is small, filthy and miserable for bears. For Miracle, it was a torture chamber. The couple fed her pig’s food, and sometimes even meat from the flesh of other bears. All day and night she laid in her own filth, locked in a cage that was never cleaned. Next to her, in another cage, a traumatized 3-legged moonbear cub wrestled with madness. One day, no longer able to cope with the pain of bile extraction and agony of mental terror, Miracle somehow escaped and swam across a river, where she found freedom in the wild.

But ...
Authorities want Miracle back; she's an embarrassment to their pride. They set traps for her and sent 30 armed hunters with 10 dogs chasing after her. When that attempt to capture Miracle failed, they sent another 110 hunters with 40 hunting dogs to track her down in May. Miracle has alluded them all. She's been living off wild honey, farmers' crops and chickens and the shear will to survive. Current plans to capture Miracle have been suspended until fall, when food supply gets low and the forest becomes thinner. If captured alive, Miracle could end up back on Lee's bile farm or the farm of another Korean bile broker.

A True Story
This is the story of Miracle. It is a true story about a courageous young moonbear. It is a story that astounds and awes, and compels all who hear the story to find a way to help her. One animal welfare organization in South Korea (moonbears.org) is dedicated to saving Miracle’s life. But they are having a hard time getting the media to help tell the story because there are no photographs of Miracle. Without images of the bear, the media won't broadcast the story over television, on the internet or in the newspaper.

Miracle Needs a Face
We need artists who can put an identity, a face, to Miracle. With an artist’s rendering of what this miraculous bear might look like, we can draw the media’s attention to her tale of abduction, murder, imprisonment, torture and escape, so the whole world becomes riveted on her. If the international community is watching and following Miracle’s story, no further harm will come to her if she is captured. The government recently overturned its order to shoot her on site, but now wants to return her to a bile farm when she is found. And that is a fate worse than death.

We can save Miracle by giving her a face, an identity. Can you help? Will you help?

Contact: Jeanette McDermott, Ursa Freedom Project

Art Requirements
We have only one requirement: that your artwork represent a moonbear. You can find a slew of photos and videos of moonbears at Ursa Freedom Project

output as A4, suitable for print (vector-based or high res)
Deadline for submission: in reality, it was "yesterday," but we can push it to September 8

Your art could end up on websites, television news, posters, newspapers, brochures, flyers, billboards, protest signs and anywhere else moonbears.org is able to get the word out to save Miracle’s life. No commercial gain will be made from your art.

The intent behind asking you to produce art for Miracle, is to help save her life. All artists will receive credit on the web and in any published format.