Guest Editorial by Angela Leary

The author is media manager for the Animals Asia Foundation, a Hong Kong-based animal-welfare charity.

CHENGDU, Sichuan Province, China – Seven bears among 28 rescued by the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) from the bile-farm industry are dead, just a week later.

One emaciated bear brought to the AAF’s rescue centre in Chengdu was dead on arrival, his body still warm. One died of prior injuries and five more have been euthanized.

AAF founder Jill Robinson says these bears, like many others, didn’t die in vain. “Each bear dying due to the barbaric conditions on farms leaves a legacy of vital information to help bring this industry down,” she said.

Robinson, a witness to countless animal-cruelty cases, expressed shock at the bears’ condition as they arrived from a farm in Ziyang. “They were in impossibly small cages, skeletal, wounded in various ways and terrified,” she said. “Some are blind, some have shattered teeth and grotesquely ulcerated gums, some have shocking necrotic wounds, their flesh literally rotting to the bones, and all out of their minds with fear. Most had open wounds in their abdomens from the free-drip method of bile-extraction, with some leaking bile, blood and pus.”

In July 2000, the AAF signed a landmark agreement with the Sichuan authorities to rescue 500 bears, to work to end bear farming in China and to promote herbal alternatives to bear bile. Farmers are compensated so they can retire or start other ventures.

The latest rescue brings to 247 the total number of bears the AAF has saved from lives of torture on bile farms in China.

But many farmers claim that a new catheter-free, free-drip method of bile extraction -- creating permanent holes in abdomens -- is painless for the bears and so the industry’s “humane”.

Such claims defy common sense. “This is something a 10-year-old would understand,” Robinson said. “A hole gouged into the abdomen and gall bladder of a sentient mammal isn’t sanitary or humane. The farmers and those believing them should be ashamed.” The latest tormented, disfigured bears prove yet again that the trade remains brutal.

Consumers in China, Japan and Korea buy the most bear bile. Bear parts, bile powder and bile products also appear in Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the U.S. and Canada. It’s illegal to export bear products from China, but black-market trade thrives. The bile is used in traditional medicines, although synthetic and herbal alternatives are available.

Two years ago, the European Parliament launched a campaign to urge the Chinese government to end bear farming by 2008. More than 7,000 bears remain trapped on farms across China. Some have been caged for more than 20 years.

That’s 7,000 abused bears too many – and 20 years too long.

For more information: www.animalsasia.org

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