Bile bear
Bile bears, sometimes called battery bears, are bears kept in captivity to harvest their bile, a digestive fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which is used by some traditional Asian medicine practitioners. It is estimated that 12,000 bears are farmed for bile in China, South Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar.
The bear species most commonly farmed for bile is the Asiatic black bear, although the sun bear, brown bear and every other bear species are also used. Both the Asiatic black bear and the sun bear are listed as Vulnerable on the Red List of Threatened Animals published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Bile was historically collected through bear hunting, but factory farming has become common since hunting was banned in the 1980s.
The bile can be harvested using several techniques, all of which require some degree of surgery, and may leave a permanent fistula or inserted catheter. A significant proportion of the bears die because of the stress of unskilled surgery or the infections which may occur.
Farmed bile bears are housed continuously in small cages which often prevent them from standing or sitting upright, or from turning around. These highly restrictive cage systems and the low level of skilled husbandry can lead to a wide range of welfare concerns including physical injuries, pain, severe mental stress and muscle atrophy. Some bears are caught as cubs and may be kept in these conditions for up to 30 years.
The value of the bear products trade is estimated as high as $2 billion. The practice of factory farming bears for bile has been extensively condemned by physicians both in China and abroad.
History
Bear bile and gallbladders, which store bile, are ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. Its first recorded use is found in . The pharmacologically active ingredient contained in bear bile and gallbladders is ursodeoxycholic acid ; bears are the only mammals to produce significant amounts of UDCA.Initially, bile was collected from wild bears which were killed and the gall and its contents cut from the body. In the early 1980s, methods of extracting bile from live bears were developed in North Korea and farming of bile bears began. This rapidly spread to China and other regions. Bile bear farms started to reduce hunting of wild bears, with the hope that if bear farms raised a self-sustaining population of productive animals, poachers would have little motivation to capture or kill bears in the wild.
The demand for bile and gallbladders exists in Asian communities throughout the world, including the European Union and the United States. This demand has led to bears being hunted in the US specifically for this purpose.
Methods of bile extraction
Several methods can be used to extract the bile. These all require surgery and include:- Repeated percutaneous biliary drainage uses an ultrasound imager to locate the gallbladder, which is then punctured and the bile extracted.
- Permanent implantation uses a tube entered into the gallbladder through the abdomen. According to the Humane Society of the United States, the bile is usually extracted twice a day through such implanted tubes, producing 10–20 ml of bile during each extraction.
- Catheterization involves pushing a steel or perspex catheter through the bear's abdomen and into the gallbladder.
- The full-jacket method uses a permanent catheter tube to extract the bile which is then collected in a plastic bag set in a metal box worn by the bear.
- The free drip method involves making a permanent hole, or fistula, in the bear's abdomen and gallbladder, from which bile freely drips out. The wound is vulnerable to infection, and bile can leak back into the abdomen, causing high mortality rates. Sometimes, the hole is kept open with a perspex catheter, which HSUS writes causes severe pain. An AAF Vet Report states that surgeries to create free-dripping fistulae caused bears great suffering as they were performed without appropriate antibiotics or pain management and the bears were repeatedly exposed to this process as the fistulae often healed over.
- Removal of the whole gallbladder is sometimes used. This method is used when wild bears are killed for their bile.
Housing and husbandry
Cubs are sometimes caught in the wild and used to supplement numbers held captive in farms. In 2008, it was reported that bear farms were paying the equivalent of US$280 to US$400 for a wild bear cub.Bile extraction begins at three years-of-age and continues for a minimum of five to ten years. Some bears may be kept in cages for bile extraction for 20 years or more. A bear can produce 2.2 kg of bile over a 5-year production life.
When the bears outlive their productive bile-producing years, they are often slaughtered and harvested for their other body parts such as meat, fur, paws and gallbladders; bear paws are considered a delicacy.
To facilitate the bile extraction process, mature bears are usually kept in small cages measuring approximately 130 x 70 x 60 cm. These cages are so small they prevent the bears from being able to sit upright, stand or turn around. Some bears are kept in crush cages, the sides of which can be moved inwards to restrain the bear. The HSUS reports that some bears are moved to a crush cage for milking, but the remainder of the time live in a cage large enough to stand and turn around.
Bile bears are often subjected to other procedures which have their own concomitant ethical and welfare concerns. These include declawing in which the third phalanx of each front digit is amputated to prevent the bears from self-mutilating or harming the farm workers. They may also have their hind teeth removed for the same reasons. These procedures are often conducted by unskilled farm staff and may result in the bears experiencing constant pain thereafter.
Pathology reports have shown that bile from sick bears is often contaminated with blood, pus, faeces, urine, bacteria and cancer cells.
Welfare concerns
International concern about the welfare of bile bears began in 1993. Many bile bear farms have little or no veterinary supervision and the animal husbandry is often conducted by non-skilled attendants. In combination with the impacts of small cage sizes, their spacing and lack of internal structures, there are several indicators of poor welfare.Physiological indicators
Elevated corticosteroid concentrations are a widely acknowledged indicator of physiological stress. Corticosteroid concentrations in the hair of Asiatic black bears relocated from a bile farm to a bear rescue centre fell between 12 and 88% over 163 days.Other physiological indicators of stress and potentially reduced welfare include growth retardation and ulcers.
A 2000 survey revealed that bile bears suffered from sores, skin conditions, ectoparasites, hair loss, bone deformities, injuries, swollen limbs, dental and breathing problems, diarrhoea and scarring.
One survey of 165 bears removed from a farm showed that, 163 had cholecystitis, 109 had gallbladder polyps, 56 had abdominal herniation, 46 had internal abscessation, 36 had gallstones, and 7 had peritonitis. Many of the bears had a combination of these conditions.
Behavioural indicators
Academic sources have reported that bile bears exhibit abnormal behaviours such as stereotypies, lethargy, anxiety, and self-mutilation.Longevity and mortality
Farmed bile bears live to an average age of five years old whereas healthy captive bears can live up to 35 years of age and wild bears for between 25 and 30 years.Legislation
China
In 1994, Chinese authorities announced that no new bear farms would be licensed and in 1996, issued a special notice stating that no foreign object was allowed to be inserted into a bear body. No bears younger than 3 years of age and lighter than 100 kg were to be used for bile extraction, and bears could be confined in cages only during the time of bile extraction. The authorities required the adoption of the free-drip method which necessitates the creation of an artificial fistula between the gallbladder and the abdominal wall by opening a cut into the gallbladder.In 2006, the Chinese State Council Information Office said that it was enforcing a "Technical Code of Practice for Raising Black Bears", which "requires hygienic, painless practice for gall extraction and make strict regulations on the techniques and conditions for nursing, exercise and propagation". However, a 2007 veterinary report published by the Animals Asia Foundation stated that the Technical Code was not being enforced and that many bears were still spending their entire lives in small extraction cages without free access to food or water. The report also noted that the free-dripping technique promoted in the Technical Code was unsanitary as the fistula was an open portal through which bacteria could infiltrate the abdomen. The report also stated that surgeries to create free-dripping fistulae caused bears great suffering as they were performed without appropriate antibiotics or pain management and the bears were repeatedly exposed to this process as the fistulae often healed over. The free-dripping method still requires the bears to be prodded with a metal rod when the wound heals over and under veterinary examination, some bears with free-dripping fistulae were actually found to have clear perspex catheters permanently implanted into their gallbladders. In addition to the suffering caused by infection and pain at the incision site, 28% of fistulated bears also experience abdominal hernias and more than one-third eventually succumb to liver cancer, believed to be associated with the bile-extraction process.