Saving Moon Bears from Lives of Torture -- China

The practice is legal in this country and currently involves some 10,000 to 12,000 bears, primarily Asiatic black bears. The manner in which the bears are kept, and the suffering that they sustain for the harvest of their bile, violates every principle of animal welfare. To date, the sanctuary still holds five bears (the others have died).

Although there is currently no education and lobbying capacity installed at the sanctuary, IFAW continues to use the sufferings of these bears to advocate for animal welfare and anti cruelty legislation. The objective for the sanctuary is to provide a safe and healthy environment for the bears to live out their lives.

These remaining five bears were rescued from a bear bile farm in Guangdong province in June 1995. The Guangdong Forestry Administration helped IFAW to rescue these bears and to this day supports the effort of helping bile farm bears through its special permit for IFAW’s sanctuary. The sanctuary is located in a village near Panyu, a port town on the Pearl River estuary and just 2 hours’ drive south of Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong.

At the time of their rescue by IFAW, the bears were emaciated, stressed beyond endurance, riddled with parasites, draining pus and pain from the gall bladder. They were fistulated with a latex catheter that was pierced into the gall bladder through the abdominal wall. The catheter was threaded under the skin from the middle of the abdomen, along the entire length of the flank, and exited from a hole in the skin on the hip. The bile extractor positioned himself behind the bear every day and drew bile through the long tube with a syringe. The latex catheter method is no longer accepted by China’s regulations for bear bile farming, but it is still found in thousands of the bears who languish in China’s bile farms today. Regardless, the other gall bladder fistulation methods are equally damaging to the health of the bears, and the husbandry methods of the bear farms cause the same degree of pain, disease, discomfort and fear.

Asiatic Black Bears are listed on Class II in China’s Wildlife Protection Law, which allows farming for utilization. Bear bile farming is legal in China and involves an estimated 10,000-12,000 bears. The animals live in cages little larger than their bodies and endure chronic malnutrition, thirst, severe restriction of physical movement, constant abuse and pain, and chronic illness. The conditions under which the bears are kept on these farms, and the suffering that they undergo from the gall bladder fistulation and bile extraction, violates every principle of animal welfare.

Historically, bear bile was used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in very small amounts as a supplement. TCM doctors also prescribe more than 50 herbal medicines to treat the same ailments that benefit from bear bile, many of them to greater effect. IFAW surveys in China (1989, 1990) have found that more than 80% of the Chinese consumers would reject bear bile on grounds of cruelty and a significant number of TCM practitioners have moved away from prescribing bear bile due to concerns over safety and quality. When bear hunting was banned in the 1980s, many bear bile farms sprang up in China. Because farming wildlife for utilization is part of China’s wildlife conservation policy, bear bile farms are increasing their number of bears. To make profit from bear farming and to expand the consumer market, bear bile is made into non-essential, non-TCM products such as toothpaste, wine, shampoo and power drinks. Moreover, bear bile is legally sold only within China but most of it finds its way into black markets throughout Asia and Asian communities in the West. Bear bile farming thereby violates not only the welfare of thousands of bears, but also drives the highly lucrative international trade in illegal wildlife products, and in turn the poaching of bears worldwide. For these reasons, we believe that bear bile farming must end. Ultimately, ending bile farming depends on the consumer: without a market for the product, there would be no bile farms and no poaching of wild bears.

Four of the nine bears that were rescued that day in 1995 have passed on now, victims of an early death brought on by the ravages of bile farming. But Xie Sheung, Digger, Elizabeth, Chu Chu and Hong are still with us, making our lives richer for sharing their world with us.

The bears have indoor dens with deep, cozy sleeping baskets, and a large outdoor enclosure thick with natural vegetation. They have two pools in which they lounge and splash in hot weather. We are currently building climbing structures for them. Through a carefully-designed behavioral enrichment program, the bears will be encouraged to climb and exercise and explore their environment for food and treats, as they do in the wild. This will help to keep them flexible and busy, both of which are important in the management of advancing age-related issues, just as they are in people and other animals. The bears receive a specially-formulated grain mixture that is cooked fresh at 5:00 every morning on site. This is supplemented with large amounts of seasonal fresh produce every day. In addition, they receive nutritional supplements that support the health of their joints.