Hey! Thanks for taking time to visit my page and checking out my mission to help stop bear bile farming!

As you are reading this now, you probably know that I am running the 4 Deserts Sahara Race, a 250 km foot race through part of the Sahara desert in Egypt, from 3-9 October, 2010. As I push myself both physically and mentally through this challenge, I know that all your contributions to this very important mission to stop bear bile farming in Asia will be one of my key motivators (click "Read more").

Bear bile farming consist of confining bears in cages the size of a phone booth so that bile can be extracted from their gall bladders through an open wound in their stomachs. This is then sold for use in some Traditional Asian Medicine and also non-medicinal products such as wine and shampoo.

Please click on the link for more info on this gruesome practice:

http://www.wspa.org.uk/wspaswork/bears/bearfarming/insidebearfarms.aspx

It is important to note that there are effective synthetic and herbal alternatives to bear bile which are both widely available and affordable, so we are not depriving anyone from medication who may need it by stopping the bile farming. We are only helping to stop unnecessary and extreme cruelty to bears living their entire lives in tiny cages, unable to move. Please help me and help make a difference!

How the donation works:

You pledge an amount for each kilometer of the desert race that I finish. In turn, I try to survive as many of the 250 kilometers spread over six stages as I can. Please note that every year a large percentage of the starting field never see the finish line, but I am going to give it my very best! If you would like to donate and support me to help stop bear bile farming, please choose an amount per kilometer that you are willing to sponsor. Then you take that amount and multiply it by the number of kilometers in every stage of the race that I successfully complete. For example, if your pledge is $0.25 per kilometer, then you would take 0.25 times 38, and donate $9.50 when I successfully complete stage one of the race. (If you would rather only make one donation you can wait till the 9th, than check how many stages I completed, sum up the total number of km and multiply that with your pledged amount.) As all donations need to be made in British pounds, you can use the following link to easily calculate the correct amount for each donation.

http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/

During the race you can track my progress by checking out my blog:

http://www.4deserts.com/blogs/comptetior_blog_new.php?authorid=OTQ1&blog=18

or looking up the results for each day:

http://www.4deserts.com/sahararace/

or by signing up for breaking news:

http://www.4deserts.com/sahararace/rtpsrtp.php?SID=8&SBID=N2

The stages are as follows:

Stage 1: 38.0 km
Stage 2: 35.7 km
Stage 3: 41.4 km
Stage 4: 38.4 km
Stage 5: 94.5 km
Stage 6: 2 km

Thank you very much for your help and support!

All the best, Eddie

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to WSPA to help stop the cruelty.