Bear Bile Farming Has No Place In Medicine or Modern Society
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Help end bear bile farming and release thousands of bears from torturous captivity
It's not surprising many people love bears. They've been a depicted in children's literature and by plush playmates for over a century.
Exploiting caged bears for their bile ducts is hardly the stuff of fairy tales, but it is a horrific reality for untold thousands of Asiatic black and sun bears in China and southeastern Asia.
As estimated by Animals Asia [1], more than 10,000 bears are subjugated to the torture of bile farms in China, with at least a tenth that many held in Vietnam. The bears in these farms are drained of their bile, day after day, through unsanitary and painful catheters connected to the gall bladder that often leave the bears with infection and pain.
Some of the animals have never even seen the outside of a cage, and those that do live long enough to near the 30-year life expectancy, often spend every second of it suffering.
The bile is used for a variety of remedies and household products, although only its key ingredient, ursodeoxycholic act, has only been found beneficial to humans in a limited amount of liver conditions, The Guardian [2] reports. There is also no shortage of more effective alternatives. Kaibao Pharmaceuticals, for example, a major supplier of bear bile medicines, is transitioning to a synthetic alternative with the financial help of the government.
According to National Geographic [3], while bear bile farming was banned in Vietnam in 2006, the practice of poaching moon bears and transporting them to neighboring Laos for farming has grown tremendously. And in China, there are even fewer regulations surrounding bear bile farming, which is expected to grow if protections for the bears and a ban on exploiting them for their bile are not soon established.
Sign to demand China's Ministries of Commerce and Agriculture ban bear bile farming in the country, once and for all.
[1] Animals Asia, End Bear Bile Farming. Retrieved July 14, 2017 from https://www.animalsasia.org/us/our-work/end-bear-bile-farming/
[2] Jeremy Hance (2015, April 9 Is the end of 'house of horror' bear bile factories in sight? Retrieved July 14, 2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/apr/09/bear-bile-china-synthetic-alternative
[3] Jani Actman (2015, May 5) Inside the Disturbing World of Bear-Bile Farming. Retrieved July 14, 2017 from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160505-asiatic-bear-bile-trade-laos/
The Petition:
Dear Leaders of the Ministries of Commerce and Agriculture of China,
The practice of exploiting Asiatic black bears and sun bears for their bile is of an outdated and nightmarish design, yet it is estimated that as many as 12,000 bears are still kept in tight cages in China, hooked up to unsanitary catheters, and left with open sores and infection.
Some of the animals have never even seen the outside of a cage, and those that do live long enough to near the 30-year life expectancy, often spend every second of it suffering.
The curative properties of bear bile are widely overstated, and easily replicated by synthetic medicines that do not involve the torture of a quickly disappearing species. Kaibao Pharmaceuticals, for example, a major supplier of bear bile medicines, is transitioning to a synthetic alternative with the financial help of your government.
Bears are not meant to be crushed into cages to be drained like blood bags, but that's exactly what you are allowing while bear bile farming is still permitted n China. Please stand up for the animals of your country, before it is too late.
I implore you to ban bear bile farming throughout China, immediately.
Sincerely,
