Swindon Moon bear named Zebedee after Magic Roundabout After running a naming competition in the Swindon Link Magazine we are delighted to announce that our Swindon moon bear has been named Zebedee after the character from the cartoon Magic Roundabout. The name was suggested by Sue Prince who said 'Swindon is famous for its Magic Roundabout and Zebedee was a magical character who arrived in a box and when let out for the first time by Mr Rusty, sprang out and bounced all over the place. Just like Misa Hai when he was first let out of his prison cage of 14 years and into his new bear den, he immediately rushed out to explore his new home and climb all over his new hammock.' Sue will recieve a photo of Zebedee. We had lots of great name suggestions and the runner up is 11 year old Lauren Spiers from Swindon who won the moon bear print by Rachel Stribbling.                                 Name the moon bear competition Fantastic news!!!! The Swindon Support Group has adopted its very own bear. He is currently called Misa Hai but we want to rename him after Swindon. If you have a name suggestion that relates to Swindon and is unusual and fun please email Sarah at sarahchilvers66@hotmail.com with your chosen name. All suggestions will be entered into a draw to win a mounted moon bear print of Prince by Rachel Stribbling and the winning name will receive a framed photo of our bear. Entries close 15th July 2010 The competition is running through the Link Magazine and winners will be announced in the August edition. Click here to read about the rescue and rehabilitation of Misa Hai.                                                                 PRINCE                                                                  Win this amazing limited edition print by                                               acclaimed artist Rachel Stribbling                                                     www.rachelstribbling.com                        Name a moon bear after Swindon Nicky Vyvyan-Robinson, Animals Asia Foundations PR and Events Manager writes :  'The cost of rescuing individual bears in both China and Vietnam varies greatly with each rescue that we carry out. Our ‘name a bear’ scheme allows you to name a bear for life. This bear will become "your" bear with a name specially chosen by you. The cost of naming your very own bear is £5000. We have come to this figure by calculating what it would actually take to free a Moon Bear and pay towards it’s upkeep for the first year at our sanctuary.  Of course we can't predict exactly how long any of our rescued bears will live - some of the bears that we are receiving are old and some are cubs - so we have to take a ballpark figure and say: this amount will cover the compensation to the farmer, vet care, surgery, and food, it will be spot on for some bears, not enough for some, and too much for others.  For this amount you will also get a photo story for your bear, together with the name you have chosen for the bear. We do realise that this amount is well out of the range of most people. However, very often we have groups of people banding together to raise the money - and we also have some people-paying monthly towards this goal. As I am sure you can imagine, we are desperately in need of funds as we work towards our goal, as agreed with the Chinese and Vietnamese governments, for rescuing 500 and 200 bears respectively'. The Animals Asia Swindon Support Group are working towards adopting and naming our own moon bear. We have to raise £5000 and our aim is to name a bear after our town which has shown amazing support for the bears. When we have raised the money and adopted our bear we are going to have a competition for local people to come up with suggestions for a name and this will be run through the Swindon Link magazine. All suggestions will be entered into a draw to win a limited edition moon bear print donated by Rachel Stribbling. The person whose name we choose will win a photo of our newly adopted bear.      We are delighted to announce that we have reached our target of £5000 to name a bear and are waiting to be allocated a newly rescued bear. Many thanks to everyone that has helped us raise the money.