Not the Bear Necessities: How Moon and Sun Bears are suffering for the unnecessary bear bile trade.
- Riley Forson
- Sep 5, 2020
- 7 min read
Introduction: Sun and Moon Bears, are both listed as vulnerable species on the Red List of Threatened Animals published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They are also listed within Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Why? Both of these Asian bear species face a number of threats to their survival including, but not limited to: habitat loss, the illegal exotic pet trade, capture for entertainment and the bear bile industry fuelled by the traditional medicine industry. The bear bile industry is the focus of this blog.
Sun and Moon Bears: getting to know the bears which are as different as day and night:
Sun and Moon bears are the Ying and Yang of bears, with differences as contrasting as the sun and the moon, or the day and the night.
Moon bears:
Moon bears, or Asiatic bears, are found across Asia from Iran and Pakistan, all the way to Japan, living in mountainous forested areas and tropical forests. They have a white or cream crescent patch, which gives them their name, large feet to forage for nuts and insects and have long hair due to the fact they often live in climates where there are large temperature drops. They also have large pointy ears and short claws.
© Animals Asia
Sun bears:
Sun bears by contrast, have much smaller feet with stiff hair and long claws. Their patch is more yellow coloured, which points to their nomenclature, and is a U shape, rather than a V shape. The sun bear is found in south-east Asia, northern India, Bangladesh, southern China and the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
However, despite their differences these bears are united by their suffering. Both of these bear species are used in the bear bile farming industry because their bile, harvested from their gall bladders, contains a high amount of deoxycholic acid, known to help treat liver and gall bladder conditions.
Bear Bile Farming:
Bear bile farming grew as supply for “traditional medicine” increased across Asia; sadly, Moon and Sun bears were abundant where traditional medicine originated. “It is estimated that over 20,000 bears- mainly moon bears, but also sun bears and brown bears- are held in captivity on farms across Asia to have their bile extracted for profit”. Free the Bears suggest that an estimated 500 bears remain in captivity in Vietnam (although this number came from 4,000 in 2006, but only 300 bears were rescued, so the fate of the others is unknown), around 150 bears are in farms in Laos (2018 estimate) and potentially 10,000 bears in farms across China.
Bear bile farming is truly horrendous. Most bears which are found in the bear bile trade industry have been captured at a young age, potentially as cubs from the wild, or are born into the farm- however they come to being on a bile farm, their fate is the same. Most bears will be caged and in this cage they often remain for up to thirty years being “milked” for their bile on a daily, or twice daily, basis. Often the bears grow around their cages, leaving them with deeply ingrained scars and infections. Their physical health is often shocking. Many bears have no teeth from trying to chew their way out of their metal traps, many have deep infections, are often starving and dehydrated and riddled with diseases like cancer of the colon. Unsurprising to those of us who care about animals, the mental and psychological well-being of these beautiful bears also suffers immeasurably.
Bear bile farming can take place in a number of ways, all of which cause unimaginable suffering to the bears. One way is through “free dripping”. This is where the bear has a hole created by incision into their gall bladder and is left this way until it is milked for a few hours and then left to drip in agony. Another is through insertion of a permanent catheter, which causes immense suffering for the bears. Crush cages and metal jackets were also used, however these are now illegal in all countries where bear bile farming is still legal-China and South Korea-but it is likely they still exist in poor and remote farms. Whichever technique is used the suffering is excruciating and these bears endure it 24 hours a day 365 days a year for up to 30 years; combine this with not being able to move freely, being starved, starved of social interaction and constantly terrified of what pain will be inflicted next.
What makes this all the more shocking is that deoxycholic acid is available in synthetic form and liver and gall bladder conditions can be treated with herbal remedies potentially more effectively than with deoxycholic acid. Often, the synthetic version of deoxycholic acid is safer to consume than that found in farmed bear bile. Animals Asia, a charity which rescues Sun and Moon bears from bear bile farms, explains that “consuming bile from sick bears (often they are dehydrated, starving, with untreated infections, which causes bile that is contaminated with blood, urine and faeces) can often be more dangerous”.
What is abundantly evident is this bear necessity, this mother nature’s recipe, is not the bare necessity of life and/or liver treatment. With cruelty free treatments being accessible, affordable and efficient, the continued existence of bear bile farming and the suffering of sun and moon bears is completely avoidable and its continuation is unacceptable.
© Animals Asia Foundation
Bear bile farming and the law:
Bear bile farming is now only legal in China and South Korea, although there have been token pieces of legislation aimed at curbing the “worst cruelty of the industry”, but these laws are “circumvented and ignored time and again”.
In China in 1996, the Chinese Forestry Ministry passed legislation which stated that farmers were not allowed to insert foreign objects into bear cubs in order to extract bile, a bear cub was under 3 years and less than 100kg. They also made it illegal to use metal jackets and crush cages. More unsatisfactory legislation followed in the form of The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Wildlife, Order No.9 (198). Article 1 states: “This law is formulated for the purpose of protecting and saving the species of wildlife which are rare or near extinction…”, then Article 4 states: “The State shall pursue a policy of strengthening the protection of wildlife resources, actively domesticating and breeding species of wildlife and rationally developing and utilising wildlife resources and to encourage scientific research on wildlife.” Article 16 prohibits hunting, catching or killing of protected wildlife, but is caveated by a host of exemptions and exceptions, including for domestication and “other special purposes”. This legislation cannot “protect and save” vulnerable wildlife when it promotes behaviours which destroy vulnerable animals like Moon and Sun bears. This legislation facilitates and promotes animal suffering.
China attempted to convince the world the lives of the bears were given more than no passing thought when, in January 2006, China’s State Council Information Office announced the Government’s enforcement of a “Technical Code of Practice for Raising Black Bears”. It “require[d] hygienic, painless practices of gall extraction and makes strict regulations on techniques”. It suggested free drip was painless and hygienic, which is certainly not the case. A Veterinary Report by Animals Asia in 2007 found this Code was nothing more than prevaricating.
It has been illegal in Vietnam since 1992, however only in 2005 was “species specific legislation” introduced to really curb the continued practice of bear bile farming in the country. This legislation made it illegal from 2005 to extract bile from any bear species, but, it did permit farmers to keep the bears they already had in their farms (an estimate of 4,300 at the time), almost all of which Free the Bears, an organisation working to protect Sun and Moon Bears, believe were poached from the wild. Now an estimated 500 bears still live on bile farms, and due to legal loopholes and minimal enforcement there are Sun and Moon bears still being milked for their bile in Vietnam. However, with the increase in legislation and education campaigns by organisations like Free the Bears and Animals Asia demand for bear bile has crashed and many farms have closed, creating its own challenges with farmers starving, selling or killing their bears and there is limited bear sanctuary space in the country.
In Laos, the Government has increased its stance against bear bile farming through recent legislation, however the loopholes are still incredibly large, making the legislation unsatisfactory for its actual purpose- to protect bears from bile farming. The Lao People’s Democratic Republic- Wildlife and Aquatic Law 2007, No 07/NA, Article 40(1) states: “Trade in wildlife and aquatic from husbandry activities shall be practiced as follows: the prohibited category of wildlife and aquatic (which Sun and Moon bears fall under) can be traded from the second generation and next generation, the breeding as father and mother from the first generation are not allowed to be traded”. Essentially, any Sun and Moon bears born into a bile farm can be traded legally. E.Livingstone and L.Gomez found, in a paper they published in 2018, that nearly all facilities in Lao PDR were operating illegally by trading first generation stock and transporting bears internationally, most likely to places where bile farming is still legal, so they were also transporting and trading second generation bears on top of this.
Where do we go from here: As Shakespeare has said in Sonnet 35, “clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun”, and the bear bile trade, legal or not, is a human created cloud staining both Moon and Sun bears and will eventually, if un-regulated and legislated, or not legislated well enough, eclipse them to extinction.
What is clear is that even where legislation exists, it is unsatisfactory either because it continues to allow the suffering of bears in bile farms or it fails to be water-tight enough to prevent loopholes appearing which then undermines the attempt to protect these bears, or enforcement is not enough and the bark of the law is worse than its bite. Evidently, serious work needs to be done in this area and more than the bare essentials are required to protect these bears.
Thankfully, there are charities working hard in the field to protect Sun and Moon bears, such as Animals Asia and Free the Bears. These charities work with local governments to try to encourage change, they provide education to change public understanding of the origins of the bile they consume and the availability of cruelty-free alternatives. They also rescue bears from the most horrendous suffering and give them safe spaces where they can be just bears, rather than commercialised drug making machines. Thank goodness for these charities which have made so much progress, as without them the Sun and Moon bears’ fates would be considerably worse.
Links to charities:
Animals Asia Foundation: https://www.animalsasia.org
Free the Bears: https://freethebears.org
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