The Asian black bear, who is more familiar as the moon bear, is being persecuted by humans for the last 3,000 years for the making of traditional Chinese medicines. Every part of the bears is being used: fat, meat, hair, genitalia, bones, but most of all their gall bladder. The bear is the only mammal whose gall produces significant amounts of Urodeoxycholic Acid (UCDA), the active agent in bear bile which is believed to protect the liver, reduce fever and inflammation, improve eyesight and break down gallstones.

In the past, bear bile was obtained by killing wild bears and removing their gall bladders. In the early 1980's as wild bears became increasingly rare, North Korea began to kidnap bear cubs from the wild, cage them, and shove a tube into the their gall bladders through a hole they create in the bears’ stomach and attach a tap to it, so that bile could be extracted on a regular basis.
This horrific technique of extracting bile from captive bears who are alive and fully conscious, was imported to Vietnam and china which is the world’s biggest bile producer. About 12,000 bears presently endure the most appalling levels of cruelty and neglect, living their whole lives caged and tapped.

The most common method of bile extraction in China involves the insertion of a steel or latex catheter into the bear‘s gall bladder through a hole cut in the bear‘s abdomen. The catheter outer end, is connected to a detachable plastic bag, held in front of the bear‘s abdomen by a permanent metal harness.

In 1993 the Chinese authorities began to promote the use of new surgical techniques for bile extraction, the "Fistulae" or 'Free Dripping Technique'.

The new technique was reportedly introduced because of high mortality rates associated with the old method. Today it is the only legal method of bile extraction in China. The older methods, however, are still commonly used in bear farms across the country.

The 'free dripping technique' involves the creation of a tissue duct between the gall bladder and the abdominal wall, using parts of the bear‘s inner body lining, known as the mesentery.

Bile is collected by inserting a rod through the fistula towards the gall bladder, which then drains its content. To prevent the fistula from closing up, the wound must be constantly re-opened - usually once or twice a day.

The most common method of bile extraction in Vietnam involves the use of ultrasound equipment to locate the gall bladder then a long syringe is inserted into the bear‘s abdomen to puncture the gall bladder. The bile is then siphoned off into a collecting jar. Repeated puncturing of the gall bladder can lead to infection with many bears dying of peritonitis.

In some cases, bears in Vietnam are subjected to a crude surgery in which the gall bladder is accessed and bile extracted. Unsanitary conditions and poorly trained staff cause painful, infected wounds, following surgery. According to bear farmers in Vietnam, bears rarely survive more than 3 or 4 such procedures.

Many organizations criticize the industry, saying this "surgery" is performed by farmers without any veterinary knowledge and without anesthesia.
Those bears cry out, claw obsessively and go into spasms throughout this torture.
Do you really think they will compromise for health care and anesthesia, while they are caged in these tiny boxes and their bile is sucked out of their body?

In Korea the extraction of bile from live bears is illegal. Instead farmers breed bears and slaughter them in front of their customers to prove the authenticity of the gall bladders.

The daily bile extraction is terrifying and excruciating. The bears shake their heads, hit the cage bars and moan after bile extraction. Some bears survive decades, literally growing into the bars of their cages. The bears are confined for their entire lives in cages so small that they cannot even turn around or stretch. As a result, many are wounded and scarred from rubbing or hitting themselves against the bars of their cages in frustration.
Their footpads are dry and painfully crack from lack of exercise, and many of the bears suffer from in-growing claws which pierce their delicate pad tissue. Many bears become arthritic.

Some bears lose one or even two limbs while violently captured in the wild. In the farm, many bears are deliberately de-clawed or suffer the agony of having their teeth cut back to the gums to remove their defenses and make them easier to "milk".

In some cages, sticks are poked in, to further restrict the bear's movements. Others are in cages that are raised above the floor so that they are constantly forced to lie on their stomachs, allowing the catheter to protrude through the cage bottom, thus facilitating access to the bile.
These bears are usually only allowed to stretch one paw through the cage to grab handful of porridge, which is often the sole component of their diet.
They are rarely given water and therefore rely on this gruel for both solid food and fluid intake.

The bears can survive up to 25 years in this miserable state.
They Suffer severe mental problems, from the constant pain and cage confinement. Some bears eat their own body parts, new mothers even eat their own babies!

There is no way out for the bears, the continued expansion of bear bile farming threatens every living bear that may be imprisoned in order to satisfy the worldwide demand for their bile.

"...one bear was seen with massive burns across her back, her teeth and claws cut back, a pus infected abdomen and mental state which caused her to continuously convulse..."

Mortality rates at the bear farms are very high, with reports of 60-80% dying during, or shortly after their initial operation before the bile extraction. Those that survive this ordeal rarely live longer than 10 years which is less than half of their normal life expectancy in the wild.

When the bears stop producing bile they are moved to another cage, where they are either left to starve to death, or are killed for their paws and gall bladders. Bear paws are considered a delicacy.

How cynical can humans be?
One of the most common arguments made by the bear farming industry is that by farming bears they are actually protecting wild populations; their argument: Why would anyone hunt wild bears for their gall bladders when they can get bile from farmed bears? There is no limit to humans’ cynicism and absurdity.

It is not only that in the last 3,000 years, humanity has failed to stop this horrible traditional oriental medicine industry, it is that for the last 20 years bile products demand is on the rise. While the global number of bears has increased in the last 5 years, the number of farms has decreased, which means that those bears are increasingly concentrated in large-scale factory farms. For example although there are now less than 100 bear farms across China, they still torture the same number of bears which is about 9,000 bears. The Chinese government is encouraging the business and plans to increase the farming 5 times over, to 45,000 BEARS. This business is worth millions of dollars.

The animal rights activists are so desperate and faithless that they seriously offer the Chinese government to promote alternatives to the bears gall industry, such as sucking bile from pigs and cows - animals that are "slaughtered for food anyway"

What does it say about society’s chance to ever change?
What does it say about the animal rights movement?
Despair, disbelief regarding the chances for a vegetarian world, not to mention a vegan world and definitely not a non-speciesist world.
Changing the type of the exploited species is not the solution.
If the best thing the movement can offer is to trade suffering with suffering… how can you not see that what you are doing is a waste of time?
Every second thousands of animals are born into a life of suffering .
Time is our greatest enemy.
And you can’t stop time.