Press Release of the Day: Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Patmore Visits Chinese Moon Bears

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This is big. Mother Jones just merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting, and this is the first time we’re asking for the donations we rely on. So we lay it all out for you in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” and we need to raise the First $500,000 in online donations by June 22. It won’t be easy. Please help if you can.

Courtesy of Animals Asia

And the winner for today’s greatest press release:

English actress Lesley Nicol, star of international hit TV show Downton Abbey, has completed a visit to Animals Asia’s China Bear Rescue Centre (CBRC) in Chengdu, China.

Via Animals Asia

Nicol—who plays the “highly-strung and quick-tempered” cook Mrs. Patmore—has previously tweeted her love for the Chinese bears:

Animals Asia, headquartered in Hong Kong, is an organization dedicated to protecting “moon bears” in China; here’s an example of moon-bear abuse.

Lesley Nicol isn’t even the first actor in the acclaimed British period drama to go rescue tortured bears in China. That honor belongs to Peter Egan, who earlier this year traveled to Chengdu, a city in southwest China, to work with Animals Asia. Egan played the Duke of Argyll in a Downton Abbey Christmas special.

On a related note, there was that one episode of Downton Abbey in which under-butler Thomas Barrow teaches kitchen maid Daisy Mason an old dance move called “the Grizzly Bear“; Mrs. Patmore shows up in that scene near the end.

So now you know.