Reports Highlight Cruelty and Illegality

Two new reports by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) highlight the ongoing, hideously inhumane treatment of bears in Chinese bear farms and the black market underground trade in bear parts in North America. Their findings support the long-held belief shared by AWI, WSPA and others that more must be done immediately to end the global trade in bear parts.

The veterinary, behavioural and welfare implications of bear farming in Asia is a painstakingly detailed review of the dreadful conditions on 44 dungeon-like bear farms. The report reveals unsuitable housing where bears are trapped in metal cages where they cannot rest comfortably or stand on solid flooring. “In some cases,” the report explains, “bears were housed in metal boxes into which small holes had been punched for ventilation.” Extreme behavioral abnormalities including self-mutilation also occur. Bears are subjected to alarming suffering including gaping sores, bone deformities, swollen limbs, and numerous other health problems. Poor young bear cubs are callously forced to learn and perform unnatural tricks such as bicycle riding and tightrope walking to make money for the bear farm owners until the cubs are old enough to be confined for regular bile removal. This scientific evaluation undertaken by Dr. Barbara Maas provides incontrovertible evidence of the cruelty of bear farms and they must be closed down.

From Cage to Consumer confirms the availability of bear gallbladders and bile in markets in San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, and five Canadian cities. In many of the 32 shops investigated in the United States, bear bile ointments, pills, powder, and intact gallbladders were available for sale. Prices ranged from fifty cents for bear bile plaster to $650 for a whole gallbladder. This WSPA survey correctly concludes: “Bears are tortured for their bile and killed for their galls by individuals who are making enormous profits through this trade.” As long as the US provides a legal market for bear parts, wild bears will be shot by poachers for their gallbladders and Asiatic black bears will be entombed in steel cages for their bile.