What do the Chinese do with bear bile?
Bear bile has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, with the first reference appearing in an eighth century medical text prescribing bear bile for maladies like epilepsy, hemorrhoids, and heart pain.
Do bear bile farms still exist?
According to recent official numbers, at least 10,000 bears are currently kept on bile farms in Asia. The extraction of bear bile from live bears causes unimaginable physical and psychological suffering and long-term health problems. Bile being extracted from a moon bear.
What do Chinese do with bear gallbladders?
China promotes bear bile as coronavirus treatment, alarming wildlife advocates. At bear farms in China and Southeast Asia, bile for use in traditional medicine is extracted by inserting a catheter, syringe, or pipe into the animals’ gallbladders—an invasive and painful process.
Why do people want bear bile?
Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid. It is purchased and consumed to treat hemorrhoids, sore throats, sores, bruising, muscle ailments, sprains, epilepsy, reduce fever, improve eyesight, break down gallstones, act as an anti-inflammatory, reduce the effects of overconsumption of alcohol, and to ‘clear’ the liver.
How much is a gallbladder from a black bear worth?
Although black bears are not in danger of extinction in most states, their body parts garner astronomical prices on the international black market. A U.S. hunter can sell a bear gallbladder for $20 to $120, with the retail price ranging from $75 to $600.
Why is bear bile valuable?
Bear bile has been used in traditional Asian medicine for thousands of years and contains high levels of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) known to be useful for treating liver and gall bladder conditions. However, there are many readily available alternatives with the same medicinal properties.
Why is bear gallbladder so valuable?
It also treats certain kinds of cirrhosis. (There’s even evidence that it inhibits the growth of tumors and thus helps prevent colon cancer.) So there’s one reason why bear gallbladders are so expensive: they have serious medicinal properties, which makes them inherently valuable.
Are bear gall bladders worth money?
A U.S. hunter can sell a bear gallbladder for $20 to $120, with the retail price ranging from $75 to $600. Paws fetch $25 to $60 each, while a carcass or hide can range from $200 to $1,500, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
How do they harvest bear bile?
Bears are kept in “crush cages,” which are deliberately too small for animals to stand or move much. In order to extract the bile – often daily – workers make permanent holes or fistula into the bear’s gall bladder. The bile is extracted, or ‘milked’ in the industry nomenclature, via metal tubes or other methods.
Why do people sell bear gallbladders?
(There’s even evidence that it inhibits the growth of tumors and thus helps prevent colon cancer.) So there’s one reason why bear gallbladders are so expensive: they have serious medicinal properties, which makes them inherently valuable.
How do they collect bear bile?
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.
How is bear bile harvested?
How much does a black bear gallbladder go for on the black market?
How much is a bear gallbladder worth in China?
The price of bear bile varies by location, but investigators have found that bile sells for about US$410 per kilogram in China, an average wild bear gall bladder sells for US$33 per gram in Japan, and a whole bear gallbladder sells for about US$10,000 in South Korea.
Why is it illegal to possess a bear gallbladder?
Selling bear gallbladders has been banned since 1998 in Quebec, in order to avoid the bears’ slaughter. Some 160 wildlife officers participated in the operation, which began in 2015. About 60 individuals were interviewed, and 16 searches took place.
How many bear farms are in China?
Bear farming remains legal in China, and at least 10,000 bears are kept in cages on nearly 70 farms. Asian black bears — closely related to the American black bear — live in mountains and forests from Japan to China and across the Himalayas to India.
How much is a bear gall bladder worth?
However, more recent investigations have stated that in China “real” whole bear gall bladders were found for sale in the range of from US$1 to US$9 per gram.
What is a bear gallbladder worth?
Examples are: “Tiny quantities of bile from the gall of endangered Asiatic black bears can be worth up to 18 times the price of gold in the retail markets of Asia.” And, “In South Korea a bear gallbladder could bring more than US$10,000 in 1994.” Comparisons have often been made to the drug trade in values, method of …
How much is a bear gallbladder worth?
What is bear bile worth?
A kilogram of farmed bear bile might cost $240, while the same amount from a wild bear could cost $15,730.
Is bear bile farming ending?
The agreement sets out a commitment to prohibit bear bile farming and bile extraction from 1 January 2026, and that the signatories agree to co-operate to humanely conserve and care for the remaining live bears.
How many bear bile farms are left?
It is estimated there are around 290 bile bears (mostly moon bears) which remain caged on farms or in private households in Vietnam.
How do you stop bear bile farming?
Five ways YOU can help end bear bile farming
- 1/ Tell the world. Animals Asia firmly believes that every additional person who finds out about bear bile farming brings us one step closer to ending the practice.
- 2/ Form a Volunteer Support Group.
- 3/ Organise an event.
- 4/ Sign up and stay up to date.
- 5/ Donate.
What products use bear bile?
Five bear bile uses it’s hard to believe are real
- Toothpaste. In recent years, bear bile has appeared in some Chinese brands of toothpaste.
- Acne treatment. Cruelty free care this isn’t.
- Tea. It is highly unlikely that any human will ever exhaust the enormous varieties of tea available in the world today.
- Shampoos.
Is bear bile legal in the US?
While the use of bear bile continues in China, it is also being used illegally in the United States.