About Victor...

I’m Victor Watkins – Wildlife Advisor for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), who I’ve worked for since the charity was set up 29 years ago.

I have a degree in Zoology from Oxford Brookes University and after completing this, I went straight to work for the International Society for the Protection of Animals (ISPA) which later merged with World Federation for the Protection of Animals (WFPA) to become WSPA in 1981. 

I started as a field officer for the Eastern Hemisphere, later becoming the Regional Director. During this time I undertook investigations into a number of animal welfare issues including fur farming in Scandinavia, dog eating in Asia, bullfighting in Europe, humane slaughter in Africa. I also assisted with WSPA’s disaster relief operations to help the animal victims of natural or man-made catastrophes and in 1990 opened a WSPA regional office in Kenya to oversee additional work in Africa.

After witnessing the suffering of bears around the world, I set up WSPA’s Libearty campaign in 1991. The campaign, to protect bears from cruelty in the wild and in captivity, saw us join forces with other groups to lobby governments on the issues facing the world’s bears – bear farming, bear baiting, bears in poor zoo conditions and dancing bears.

Bear protection and conservation projects have been an important part of my work, taking me around the world, to a diverse range of countries including USA, Japan, China, Canada, Ecuador, Colombia, Bulgaria, Borneo, Pakistan and India.

I’ve worked on many bear projects; helping with the resuce of dancing bears, building sanctuaries in Greece and Turkey, undercover investigations into the trade in bear parts in China and Korea and into overcrowded bear parks in Japan and advised on the building of nine bear sanctuaries across the world.

Comments

[Lisbeth]

Dear Victor,

Thank you for writing this blog and sharing your knowledge on bears with us :-) I look forward to reading this blog and learning even more about one of my favourite animals, the beautiful bear(s) :-)

Have a great conference!

Best regards,
Lisbeth, Denmark

[Tony]

dear Victor thanks for your graet work in protecting not only bear but with other animals
My name is Tony I study Environemental secience I not attand such a confrence from Nigeria or work for WSPA in nigeria animal are kill with on considration
Once again thanks for your good work

[Deb K.]

Victor,
Thank you so much for helping bears everywhere. Your dedication has accomplished so much and I look forward to continuing to be a WSPA supporter and hope I see the end of bear baiting and bile farming in my life time. Bears are such wonderful, amazing creatures..........a gift to us and we need to protect them and their habitat.

Deb K.
USA

[isabel]

come to romania,go to brasov

[Beverley Byram]

Victor
I have been a WSPA Supporter for many years and the bears are the cause closest to my heart.
I can only say thank you so much for the wonderful work that you and the others do. I wish you every success with your endeavours.
It sickens me that we human beings can treat animals with such cruelty and contempt but I am thankful for people like the WSPA who are trying to change our attitudes.
Bev Byram
England

[Allyson Fuller]

HI Victor, from all of us who care so much for the welfare of bears and all animals...we say thankyou for all your hard work!!
Allyson Fuller
Australia.

[Liz Ralston]

Hello Victor
Thank yourself for being who you are, a very caring and loving person, i have not been a member long, but do a lot for wildlife and animal welfare.
Please do your best for the suffering of not just the bears, which are my fav, but for all the animals that have to suffer from one the worst species, humans. I know were not all like that, but its makes me sick that people do what they do.
Keep up the good work.
Liz

[Anne-Marie Domeniconi]

Dear Victor,
Thank you so much for your great work. Hopefully that more and more humans like you will help and understand especially with your outstanding informations.
Thanks again and take care of you!
Your's very sincerely
Anne-Marie

[Myra Hunter]

Dear Victor

Of all the animal suffering that goes on in the world, I think the treatment of keeping bears in cages to extract their bile must be the cruellest. They spend years of pain in confined spaces - for what- supposedly medicinal purposes! I think I become more distressed about bear suffering in all aspects than almost any other animal cruelty. My sincere thanks for allyou are doing .

Myra Hunter Worcestershire. England

[Victor]

Dear all who commented on this post, to say thank you very much for your support. It's good to know that when I am in a remote part of the world that there are supporters like you giving us encouragement to keep on working to help protect bears. I'll pass your kind words on to my colleagues.

Victor

[Lynne Scarles]

Hi Victor,

Hope you have had a good conference.It's so shocking that in the 21st century people can still regard dancing bears as entertainment.Thank you for your interesting blog and to the whole WSPA team for their dedication and hard work.Bears are such wonderful,dignified creatures and I hope that we will soon see an end to the barbaric acts of cruelty that they suffer.

[marizela]

victor your doing a phenominsl job in protecting bears i cant believe people support the dancing bears as entertainment thats extremely cruel buut its good that we have people like you to defend and protect these animals i eill donate so people like you can continue to help animals to be freed from cruel treatment

[JULIA PAPWORTH]

I am a great supporter of WSPA and the work they do with all animals, especially bears and would like to thank you for all your knowledge, patience and understanding you show in your job to help these beautiful creatures be safe and protected. Keep it up, I'll keep nagging all my friends to also donate to WSPA!

[Catherinecollin]

I was a volunteer years ago, in your London office. I remember the first rescue( Turkey or Greece...I can`t remember...) of a bear from the gypsies and an Australian tv crew that rescued , also, a bear and brought to the reserve/park in their car! It was amazing!
Bravo, Victor!

[Wilma Morris]

Dear Victor how truly inspiring to read about the wonderful work you are doing with the bears they are my favourite and the sickening photos of bear baiting in the arena with the dogs in pakistan was the reason I joined wspa in the first place keep doing what you love you have all our support

posted by Wilma Morris at 11.45 06/03/2010 Scotland

[Sonia Winfield]

hi victor, I want to say I think you and the team are marvellous doing a wonderful job helping he bears. I just got home from tenerife, an had a lovely holiday in los Christianos, then I saw a poster there advertising a circus with dancing bear(s)from 3rd June-13th June 2010, I hope this information gets to you quickly and something can be done. Sonia

[Rita Malecki]

hello Victor

Thank you for all the help you do for the bears, there is one more issue that i would like to raise and its the bears that are being milked for the bile in China, please, please can you do anything to help these poor bears that must be suffering horribily. we need to teach the Chinese people that this bile will do them no good what so ever.
please help them.

[Alison Fennell]

Very intersting and re-assuring to hear of your total love and dedication to these animals. I am helping Moon Bear rescue with Animals Asia through sales of charity moon bear art. I hope to raise TONNES of money for them:) Alison

[backlinks]

Most powerful&cost effective SEO and website traffic service in world get up to 100’000 forum backlinks now! Get large web traffic using best backlink service today. We can post your marketing message up to 100’000 forums worldwide, get insane amount of backlinks and great targeted web traffic in very short time. Most affordable and most powerful service for web traffic and backlinks in the world!!!! Your post will be published up to 100000 forums worldwide your website or blog will get instant traffic and massive increase in seo rankings just after few days or weeks so your site will get targeted long term traffic from search engines. Order now: backlinks