Right now as you read this, as many as 10,000 Asiatic black bears (otherwise known as moon bears because of the crescent of golden fur across their chests) are suffering painful and cruel treatment at the hands of so-called bile farmers in China and around 4000 are held in captivity for bile extraction in Vietnam.
These lovely and endangered bears are kept in totally abhorrent conditions imprisoned in cages for years on end where they have no room to move so that their bile can be extracted once or twice daily in a painful procedure as a sought-after ingredient in Chinese traditional medicines. Their suffering is the stuff of which nightmares are made. The farmers carve a hole into the bears’ abdomens through which the bile drains out. The hole is kept permanently open by the farmers, even though the wound naturally tries to heal. This is the so-called “humane” free drip method of bile extraction. Previously catheters were inexpertly implanted into their gall bladders, which are next to their livers. Through these metal tubes, the bile is drained from the gall bladder daily. Both methods of bile extraction are very unhygienic and as a result the bears develop severe infections in the body and the skin which are very painful. Some of the bears die as a result. The bears surviving the ‘surgery’ spend the rest of their lives suffering in tiny cages. The bears are unable to move and stretch. They bite the bars of the cages because they are bored. This frequently breaks their teeth which gives them severe toothache. Some have head wounds from banging their heads against the bars. Often the claws are painfully removed from their paws. As a result of not walking for many years, their paws develop severe infections. Some moon bears have lived in these terrible conditions on farms for as much as 25 years, with the confinement causing severe mental stress as well as dire muscle atrophy.
Bear in a ‘coffin cage’ (with Jill Robinson MBE, founder of the rescue mission, holding his paw stretched out to her)
Bears lined up in tiny cages on a ‘farm’
But there is good news………………
Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) has mounted a rescue mission and established the first Moon Bear Rescue Centre in the world in Chengdu to rescue literally hundreds of farmed bears.. Working with the Chinese authorities, AAF receives bears from farms which have been closed down and, at the Sanctuary, the staff begin a long and complicated veterinary process to heal the physical and mental wounds of the new arrivals. The bears can never be returned to the wild as they have become so dependent on man, but at the sanctuary, once they have recovered from their surgery, they can put their former torture behind them and live out their lives in the sun, free from pain and fear. AAF campaigns tirelessly to make bear bile farming illegal in China, as it is in Vietnam, and to promote the use of herbal and synthetic alternatives to bear bile in traditional Chinese medicine. AAF is dedicated to the lifetime care of the rescued bears, returning as many of them as they can to health and happiness.
Moon bear, Metty, well recovered and living happily ever after at the Centre after being in captivity for many years
Many bears just don’t make it after years of cruel and painful treatment at the hands of their captors on the farms. But many do, and they live out their lives in peace at the Rescue Centre. For some this is a very short time if their suffering has been very severe. Others are much, much luckier……………………………….
Bear at play at the Centre
28 bears rescued in March 2008
Rescued bear on arrival at the Sanctuary in Chengdu. The light area on the abdomen shows the “free drip fistula” method of bile extraction where bile, pus and blood is leaking from a permanently open hole.
In late March 2008, 28 bears arrived at the Centre after the closing down of a farm by Madam Xiong, Head of the Sichuan Forestry Department. AAF has been working closely with her and the China Wildlife Conservation Association for the release of 500 bears in captivity on farms since 2000. To date 247 bears have been rescued and taken to the Chengdu Centre.
The horrendous condition of the latest bears rescued is hard to deal with – even at a distance. To date, thirteen are dead.
Some of the dead bears about to be buried at the Centre
They were in such bad shape when they reached the Centre, some either died shortly after arrival, or where euthanised by the Centre’s vets after treatment to save them did not succeed.
You can read more about the rescue and view pictures and video clips on the AAF website and in particular on Jill’s blog (www.animalsasia.org). (The material is of a sensitive nature). Jill Robinson MBE founded AAF in 1998 following her first visit to a bear farm in China in 1993. AAF has recently opened a second Centre in Vietnam.
Synthetic alternatives available
The monetary value of bear bile comes from its use as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), which is believed to reduce fever, protect the liver, improve eyesight, break down gall stones, and act as an anti-inflammatory. There is high demand for the bile which has led to the introduction of intensive farming of bears. Because only minute amounts are used in traditional Chinese medicine, a total of 500 kg of bear bile is used by practitioners every year. According to the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), however, more than 7,000 kg is being produced annually, most of it used in wines, eye-drops, and general tonics.
The final tragedy and irony of this situation is that the medicinal ingredient of bear bile is now available in synthetic and herbal form. Moon bears do not have to go through this terrible and inhumane suffering. Some leading Chinese traditional medicine practitioners agree that bear bile can easily be substituted by many different herbs, and have spoken out against its use. They have also pointed out that the use of such bile can be unhygienic coming as it very often does from bears’ infected gall bladders. Other practitioners, however, continue to prescribe bear bile for their patients and reject any sort of modern substitute. These individuals drive the market demand for bear bile and pressure the Chinese government to continue the practice of bear farming.
In January 2006, the Chinese State Council Information Office held a press conference in Beijing, during which the government said that it was enforcing a “Technical Code of Practice for Raising Black Bears,” which “requires hygienic, painless practice for gall extraction and make strict regulations on the techniques and conditions for nursing, exercise and propagation.” However, a 2007 Veterinary Report published by Animals Asia Foundation stated that the Technical Code was not being enforced and that many bears were still spending their entire lives in small extraction cages without free access to food or water.
AAF also noted that the free-dripping technique promoted in the Technical Code was unsanitary as the fistula created to access the gall bladder allowed for an open portal through which bacteria could infiltrate the abdomen. The AAF Vet Report also stated that surgeries to create free-dripping fistulas caused bears great suffering as they were performed without appropriate antibiotics or pain management and the bears were repeatedly exposed to this process as the fistulas often healed over. The free-dripping method still requires the bears to be prodded with a metal rod when the wound heals over and, under veterinary examination, some bears with free-dripping fistulas were actually found to have clear perspex catheters permanently implanted into their gall bladders. In addition to the suffering caused by infection and pain at the incision site, 28% of fistulated bears also experience abdominal hernias and more than a third eventually succumb to liver cancer, believed to be associated with the bile-extraction process.
People who consume such bile for health reasons are, therefore, very often consuming infected material which is no way can contribute to overcoming illness and promote health. See the letter attached from Dr Eric Busch.
But this is a large industry in China, providing many jobs for people who are poor and often also for those who are greedy. People do not change easily from what they know. It is a complex situation and to date, the Chinese government has refused to ban bear bile farming. AAF does provide compensation to farmers to stop bear farming and release the bears to them, which allows the farmers to develop another livelihood.
Education regarding good treatment and care of animals is needed on a wide scale
Moon bear, Mafi, at the Rescue Centre
Much education and change is needed around the issue of bear farming. AAF’s moon bear sanctuary provides the perfect educational “tool” with regular Open Days for visitors both from the general public and from schools all over China. The response is heart warming with visitors swearing never again to use bear bile products.
The government appears to see farming as a reasonable answer to the loss of wild bears from poaching, and at the same time appear for the most part resistant to concerns about the cruelty experienced by the bears expressed by Western animal rights activists. Many Chinese people also consider bear farms a way to reduce the demand on the wild bear population. Unfortunately, the claim of saving wild populations cannot be substantiated as many of the bears on farms are missing limbs having been caught in the wild in leg hold traps. Also many dedicated practitioners believe in the greater purity of bile from wild bears resulting in bears still being shot in the wild and high prices for whole gall bladders. As a result, Asiatic black bears are listed in CITES Appendix 1 and considered highly endangered in the wild.
South African Campaign and Petition
Continual campaigning and petitioning by other countries and people all over the the world is one very strong way of contributing to the education taking place already by AAF and getting the change to happen.
A local campaign and petition has been launched to put pressure on the local Chinese embassy by concerned SA citizens. This is in line with petitions being conducted elsewhere in the world. The petition is attached if you wish to download and print it and gather signatures. Signatures can be returned to Ms Jan Beeton, who has mounted the campaign. Her details are given on the petition. There is also a local on-line petition you can sign at the website: http://mypetition.co.za:80/index.php?page=sign_petition&petition_id=216
Thank You for Caring
Donations
If you wish, you can also become a regular donor or make periodic donations to AAF on their website: www.animalsasia.org
You can inform yourself further about the situation by reading Jill’s blog on the AAF website (www.animalsasia.org) and by visiting the following website as well: bearbilefacts.org.
Letter written by Eric Busch, MD, to Mr Zhang Guo Liang, President Wen Wei Po (link above in feature)
Dear Mr. Zhang
I represent a group of concerned doctors here in the United States. We have read your recent articles on the bear bile industry. We have been aware of bear farming for many years and are, like many individuals, distressed by the suffering of these animals. As interested physicians, we would like to express our viewpoint on several issues. Perhaps this will be helpful to those who find the relationship of bear bile to pharmaceuticals confusing.
By way of background, bile is a liquid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. This mixture of acids, cholesterol, water, and electrolytes aids in the digestion of food. The bile of all mammals contains a chemical called ursodeoxycholic acid or UDCA. UDCA is chemically very different from the other bile acids, which may account for its healing properties, and it has been recognized for at least forty years to be the therapeutic element of bear bile.
For reasons we don’t fully understand, bears have more UDCA in their bile than other animals, which may explain the historical basis for bear bile use in traditional Chinese medicine. We have never seen any evidence that there are any other therapeutic constituents of bear bile. This may be due to the corrosive nature of bile, which destroys most other substances including proteins and amino acids.
The effects of pharmaceutical UDCA on human systems have been studied extensively, resulting in the use of this drug worldwide for a number of specific diseases. These include primary biliary cirrhosis, sclerosing cholangitis, and gallstone disease. The potential application of UDCA in humans does not end there. Active research in the treatment of neurological disease, eye disease, and heart attack is promising.
This UDCA, a medication taken by millions of patients, is not taken from bears. It is produced by pharmaceutical companies from bile collected in slaughterhouses. The end result is a pharmaceutical product which is of known potency and purity, widely available under various trade names. It is our view that this medication has made the use of bear bile unnecessary. That being said, we suppose that if individuals wish to consume bile for indications that do not require the therapeutic properties of UDCA, bile of many types is readily available.
We find a number of flaws with bear farm products when they are considered as medicines. Farmed bears have a high rate of liver cancers, which are probably the result of chronic infection and inflammation of the gall bladder and liver. This, coupled with the collection techniques, results in bile that contains pus (white blood cells), debris, skin cells, and other impurities. We wonder if some of these elements are present in the compounds ingested by patients. In addition, it is difficult to know how much active drug is present in each sample. After all, each bear produces different amounts of UDCA at different times.
We want to stress that we do not intend to criticize traditional Chinese medicine for its use of bear bile. Bear bile was once a necessary part of their methods and we, along with millions of patients worldwide, are grateful for the discovery of UDCA by traditional Chinese medicine. That being said, change and evolution are a part of all progress, and while Western medicine has learned and benefited from traditional medicine, traditional medicine can do the same by making bear bile a part of its past.
Knowledge is power. UDCA is an important pharmaceutical which has the potential to improve human health. We hope that the governments of China and other Asian countries that now sanction bear farming will recognize this logic and act in the best interest of patients requiring UDCA and the bears that are part of this industry. By eliminating bear bile and publicly supporting the use of these widely available, clinically proven pharmaceuticals, these countries can actually enhance the health of those who need the benefits of UDCA while putting an end to bear farming.
Finally, there will be those who will dispute what we have said. They will refer to special elements of bile that cannot be reproduced in any pharmaceutical. With that in mind, we wonder how the confinement, pain, debilitation, and untimely death of the farm bear affect the healing properties that are attributed to its bile. The chi in a bear subjected to these conditions must be weak indeed.
The best health care involves the mixture of compassion, knowledge, skill, and those intangible elements that cannot be explained. We respectfully suggest that the use of bear bile is not only unnecessary, but also inconsistent with these ideals. We are hopeful that those who are receptive to change will find the facts and ideas presented herein helpful, and that our thoughts can spark a new debate on these important issues.
Respectfully,
Eric H. Busch M.D.
New Orleans, Louisiana
January 23, 2008
Presentation on Bear Bile
