The hero conservationists ready to save Asia’s bears, one by one...

DESPITE the cute title, it took a strong stomach to endure the scenes of animal cruelty in Bears

About The House (bbC2). The image of a starving sun bear cub, no bigger than a Cavalier spaniel, trapped in a cage littered with rubbish, will be hard to wipe from the mind.

When I interviewed presenter Giles Clark last month, he assured me the sights he saw in the southeast Asian country of Laos were still giving him nightmares.

A visit to a village market, where boxes of live tortoises were on sale in the street and wine steeped in ground tiger bones was illegally available in darkened shops, left him boiling. ‘It makes me sick and it makes me angry,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of people in this trade who don’t care, as long as they are profiting, and we need to stop it.’

Most horrendous of all is the way bears are tortured in the name of traditional medicine.

The smaller sun bears, with their bandy legs, razor claws and sun-like circles of yellow fur on their chests, are generally sold for fur and meat, or as trophy pets.

but their larger cousins, the Asiatic black bears or moon bears, with a blond crescent under their throats, are confined in cages so small they cannot even turn around, and their livers are ‘milked’ to extract bile, an ingredient in local medicines. In these unspeakably barbaric conditions, the animals can be kept alive for up to eight years.

Mostly, the bears are illegally taken from the wild by poachers, who kill the adults and sell the cubs.

Giles was in Laos to help an old friend, Matt hunt, who runs a bear sanctuary. Tipped off about a baby sun bear for sale, the two men rescued her and set about beefing her up on high-fat milk.

They named her Mary, and she proved incredibly affectionate — her favourite games were riding in wheelbarrows and leaping out of trees into her keepers’ arms.

because of the poachers, Mary can never be released into the wild. Instead, she will live in a five-acre enclosure maintained by Matt’s charity, Free The bears, where she is guarded by intruder-proof fences and CCTV.

Conservationist Giles is completely committed to saving bears like Mary, one by one from their cages if there’s no other way. he told me he planned to fly back to the smothering 40c heat of Laos as soon as travel restrictions were lifted.

his dedication is awe-inspiring. but it was impossible not to feel saddened and disheartened by the suffering he uncovered.

Paul O’Grady lifted the spirits as he returned to battersea animal rescue centre after lockdown in For The Love Of Dogs — Back In Business (ITV). The pets waiting for adoption have spent the past few months with foster families — Paul looked after one himself, a Jack Russell puppy called Nancy.

Now the charity is reopening its doors and the work of finding permanent homes for its dogs and cats can start again in earnest. I was on the point of phoning the show to demand bobby the four-month-old bichon frise (which, fittingly, is French for ‘curly-haired lapdog’). but I was too slow: Paul’s agent Joan nabbed him first.

George the staffie is faring rather worse. he’s been dubbed ‘the most unlucky dog at battersea’ after being adopted by three different families . . . and brought back every time. he doesn’t get on with cats, apparently.

Lightweight though this show is, it never fails to restore a little faith in humanity.

Now, if only someone will give George a home.