Bears rescued from 'hellish' Chinese bile farm

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 3 Apr 08;

Bears that have suffered years of cruelty and ill-treatment on Chinese bile farms have been rescued.

The 28 Moon bears were in a pitiful condition when they were brought to a rescue centre in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.

Workers from the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) tragically found one male bear dead when it arrived, its body still warm.

Another had to be put down and another died of its injuries within hours of arrival.

AAF founder and CEO, Jill Robinson who has worked for 10 years in Asia rescuing bears and trying to put an end to the farms, said she was shocked by the condition of the animals.

"All were in impossibly small cages, all skeletal, wounded in various ways, and terrified of what would happen in this next stage of their lives," she said.

"Some are blind, some have shattered teeth and grotesquely ulcerated gums, some have shocking necrotic wounds - their flesh literally rotting down to the bones - and all out of their minds with fear.
"Most had open wounds in their abdomens from the free-drip method of bile-extraction, with some leaking bile, blood and pus."

The latest rescue of the bears brings the total rescued by AAF from Chinese bile farms to 248.

Jill Robinson launched AAF after visiting a farm and describing it as "hellish" and "a torture chamber for animals".

In July 2000, AAF signed a landmark agreement with the Sichuan authorities to rescue 500 bears in the province, and to work towards the elimination of bear farming in China and to promote the herbal alternatives to bear bile.

The farmers are given compensation so they can retire or set up new businesses and their licences are taken away permanently.

Bear bile, like rhino horn and tiger parts, is highly prized for use in Chinese traditional medicines. A chinese rural farmer with an income of just over £1 per week can sell a kilo of bear bile for £150.

Although synthetic alternatives to the bile are now widely available the illicit trade continues to flourish condemning bears caught in traps in the wild to unimaginable horrors. Often the animals caught in steel traps lose paws and then injure themselves further because of the appalling and cramped conditions in tiny cages.

Asiatic black bears, known as Moon Bears because of the golden crescents on their chests, can end up spending up to 25 years in coffin-sized cages where they are 'milked' daily for their bile, often through crude and filthy catheters causing the animals intense pain.

The bears are also milked through permanently open holes in their abdomens in what is claimed to be a more humane free-dripping technique. It is the only permitted method of bile extraction in China, but still causes constant pain and the slow death of the bears.

But Jill Robinson said the method was still patently cruel. "This is something that a 10-year-old would understand - a hole gouged into the abdomen and gall bladder of a sentient mammal is neither sanitary nor humane.

"The farmers and those who believe them should be ashamed."

She said the latest batch of tormented and disfigured bears provided further proof that the trade is as brutal as ever. Although the trade in bear products is illegal in China there is a flourishing black market.

The demand for bear bile is greatest in China, Japan and Korea but bear parts, bile powder and bile products are also found in Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the US and Canada.

The bile is still used in traditional medicine for a range of complaints including fever, liver disease and sore eyes.

Two years ago, the EU launched a campaign to urge the Chinese government to end bear farming by 2008.

It is though there are more than 7,000 bears are still trapped in farms throughout China.

AAF employs 150 local on-site staff at its Chengdu sanctuary which costs about £50,000 per month to run, and where remarkably the bears do learn to recover from their ordeal.

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