BATTERY FARM BEARS MILKED FOR MEDICINE   - March 23, 1999  

London: The brochure for the Ruili Dianye pharmaceutical factory, where 230 black bears are milked for the bile from their gall bladders, says reassuringly that the animals "enjoy themselves in a comfortable environment".

But a correspondent who visited the place saw bears in tiny cages. The animals were unable to turn around and some swung to and fro in a manner suggesting extreme frustration.

Several had red, raw stomach wounds, where a steel catheter had been inserted, linked to a plastic tube which carried the precious bile to a receptacle.

The bear bile, siphoned off every few days, is used for treating liver problems, shock from severe burns, haemorrhoids, conjunctivitis and sinusitis and even some cancers. The gall bladders are used for liver cancer and cirrhosis.

Unofficial figures suggest that 8 000 to 10 000 bears are caged in China in battery bear farms - there are only about 12 000 left in the wild in China.

These bear farms, distasteful though they are, are hardly worse than the West's battery hen farms or mink enclosures.

Some environmentalists argue that at least they take some of the pressure off bears in the wild, which are still hunted illegally, their bile being considered of a far superior quality.

- The Times

from an article in the Cape Times  

Webmaster's note:

I find it incredible that the reporter who wrote this article can attempt to justify such abhorrent cruelty by citing the battery hen situation. Both are appalling and both must be abolished. Offsetting the cruelties of one by comparing it to another is not a logical argument.

As for the environmentalist view, that clearly goes to show that ethics is not a consideration in modern environmental attitudes. And the claim is also illogical: if nearly half the bear population are trapped in farms and will most likely never again be part of the wild population, how can this be seen as positive for the future of black bears? I doubt bears breed well in captivity (certainly not under those conditions), so those bears which die off will simply be replaced by captive individuals from the wild (apart from the fact that captive breeding has rarely been a successful strategy for conservation).

And if illegal poaching of wild bears is still continuing despite the bile farms, then what possible benefits can these environmentalists see in the practice?

(BTW: I am very surprised that the reporters didn't follow their usual poor taste and make some menial pun, such as "these bear farms are truly galling!")