Mark Bekoff, NewScientist.com
May 2009
When Jasper arrived his rescuers had to cut him out of a tiny "crush cage" that pinned him down so the farmer could extract lucrative bile from his gall bladder. He had been in THAT cage for 15 years.
Jasper is an Asiatic black bear, also known as a moon bear because of
the yellow crescent on his chest. In 2000 he came to the Animals Asia Moon
Bear Rescue Centre in Chengdu, China, from a bear farm.
When Jasper arrived his rescuers had to cut him out of a tiny "crush cage"
that pinned him down so the farmer could extract lucrative bile from his
gall bladder. Bear bile is used in traditional Chinese medicine and fetches
a tidy price. In China, the wholesale price is around 4000 yuan
(approximately $580) per kilogram; each bear produces up to 5 kilograms a
year. But it comes at terrible cost.
Bear cages at a bile farm in Szechuan, China. The cages limit the
bears' movement. making it safe for the "farmers" to extract the bile from
permanently open wounds.
Jasper spent 15 years in his cage. Other bears spend up to 25 years in
cages no bigger than their bodies, barely able to move. Bears are milked for
bile twice a day. In China, farmers use a crude catheter inserted into the
gall bladder or a permanently open wound. In Vietnam, they use long
hypodermic needles.
Over the past 10 years, Animals Asia has rescued 260 bears from Chinese bear
farms. These are the lucky ones. The official number of farmed bears in
China is 7000, but Animals Asia fears the real figure is closer to 10,000.
A bear photographed during a rescue by Animals Asia in Sichuan,
China. The wound where bile has been extracted is visible on its abdomen.
Despite its obvious cruelty, bear farming is legal in China. While
CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, lists
Asiatic black bears at the highest level of endangerment, China grants them
only second-level protection, which allows them to be farmed. There are no
reliable estimates of the remaining wild population in China, though some
have put it as low as 15,000.
Bear farming is also practiced in Vietnam, where it is illegal but remains
widespread because of a lack of enforcement. There are around 4000 bears on
Vietnamese farms and yet more in Laos, Cambodia and Korea.
In China, bear farming is justified on the grounds that it satisfies local
demand for bile, hence reducing the number of bears taken from the wild.
Farms are allowed to breed bears in captivity and hunting wild bears has
been illegal since 1989. Despite this, many wild bears are still poached for
their whole gall bladders or to restock the farms. Bears sometimes arrive at
the rescue centre with missing limbs after being trapped in the wild.
The rescue program was sparked in 1993 when Animals Asia founder Jill
Robinson visited a bear farm. After years of government lobbying the rescue
centre was set up in 2000 and now houses up to 175 bears.
Broken bodies
Those bears who reach the centre have invariably suffered serious physical
and psychological trauma. Rescued bears can't be released into the wild
because of the long-term damage caused by their incarceration. All need
surgery to remove damaged gall bladders and many need additional surgery and
long-term medical care due to missing claws or paws, infected and necrotic
wounds and broken and missing teeth caused by biting at bars or because
farmers break them to make the bears less dangerous. Many also have liver
cancer as a result of being continually milked for bile, plus a litany of
other ailments including blindness, arthritis, peritonitis, weeping ulcers
and ingrown claws.
In contrast to the horrors of bear farming, the rehabilitation process is
amazing and inspiring to witness. It takes around a year to rehabilitate a
bear. Although a handful have to be kept alone for the rest of their lives,
most can eventually be housed with other bears. The transition in
personality from animals who are violent and fearful to ones who are
trusting, inquisitive and completely at ease with people is truly
remarkable, Robinson says. She is right. I have visited the rescue centre
and it changed my life. That is how powerful the bears' stories are.
In contrast to the horrors of bear farming, the rescue process is inspiring
to see.
Watching rehabilitated bears play is a joy. Many continually seek out
playmates, an indication that they have substantially recovered from their
trauma. I once saw two bears called Aussie and Frank frolicking on a
hammock. When Aussie saw Jasper ambling over, he jumped off the hammock,
approached Jasper, and they began play-fighting. The deep trauma they had
experienced wasn't stopping them from enjoying themselves. Yet some bears
have behavioral scars and flashbacks from their unspeakable abuse. Aussie
still scampers back to his den when he hears a strange noise.
Despite the rescue program bear bile extraction remains a cause of wanton
and remorseless abuse. It is hard to change attitudes when bear bile has
been used in Chinese medicine for more than 3000 years to treat "heat
related" ailments such as eye and liver diseases. Today it is used to treat
conditions from hangovers to haemorrhoids.
There is some evidence from western medicine that a synthetic version of the
active ingredient in bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid, can treat a range of
diseases, including hepatitis C. Yet traditional Chinese medicine still
insists on using natural bear bile, which is often contaminated with pus,
blood, urine and faeces. While healthy bear bile is free-flowing and
orangey-green, veterinarians describe bile leaking from the diseased gall
bladders of rescued bears as "black sludge."
The moon bear rescue project raises a number of important questions. For
example, why do bears show large individual differences in response to
persecution, and variations in recovery? Rescued bears are powerful
ambassadors, but should so much time and money be invested in saving the
lives of individuals who will not make any direct contribution to saving
their species? How can people from outside China work to free bears while
respecting their Chinese colleagues and remaining sensitive to cultural
traditions? It also raises questions about how people can act in undignified
and shameful ways that ignore the horrific pain and suffering of highly
sentient animals.
Efforts to stop bear farming are ongoing. Soon after Robinson founded
Animals Asia in 1998, she negotiated an agreement with the Chinese
government to work towards the elimination of bear farming. All farms are
inhumane, but the very worst are identified for closure by the government
and the farmers have their licences permanently revoked. It is from these
farms that bears come to the rescue centre. Animals Asia compensates the
farmers so that they can start another business or retire. More than 40
farms have so far been closed, and China has not issued any new licences
since 1994.
The rescued bears love fruit and enthusiastically go for the
buckets filled with food. Placing the buckets up high forces the bears to be
more active.
Animals Asia has also submitted a proposal to the government to help
wind down the industry, including offers to help bear farms become rescue
facilities.
There is still much to be done to right the wrongs of bear farming. Robinson
looks to the day when all farmed bears will wake with the sun on their backs
and without fear in their hearts. Each bear surely appreciates the effort.
Just look into their eyes. I have.
Marc Bekoff is professor emeritus at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Return to Animal Rights Articles