trade in bear parts

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Detection kit battles trade in bear parts

 

 

Customs officers will soon be armed with bear detection kits in a

bid to halt the burgeoning illegal trade in bear parts such as gall

bladders and bear bile. The kit, being developed by the London-based

World Society for the Protection of Animals, can detect products

containing bear derivatives within minutes.

 

 

Despite being prohibited by the Convention on Illegal Trade in

Endangered Species (CITES), bear bile and gall bladders are popular

ingredients in traditional medicines. They are used to treat

ailments ranging from arthritis to liver disease. Gall bladders can

fetch up to 18 times their weight in gold, says Eric Chivian,

director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at

Harvard, US.

 

Because of this, bear poaching and farming are rife in parts of

south-east Asia such as China, Vietnam and Korea. In China, as many

as 9000 bears are farmed in cramped conditions where they are

subjected to painful daily extraction of bile.

 

Worryingly, bear derivatives are now being used in products such as

shampoos, says Kate Sanders, a consultant with WSPA. And the only

way to test a product for such ingredients is to send it to the lab,

which is costly and time consuming. So Sanders came up with the idea

of a detection kit.

 

Specific proteins

 

The kit is being developed by Wildlife DNA Services in Bangor, UK.

It works on the same principle as home pregnancy kits, which use

antibodies to detect specific proteins. In this case, the kit's

detector reacts with seven proteins specific to each bear species

apart from pandas, in which there is little trade. " We can't

do DNA

tests in the field, so this is the next best thing, " says Rob

Ogden

of Wildlife DNA.

 

WSPA campaigns officer David Eastham believes the kit will make a

difference. " It's not going to eradicate the trade but

it's going to

act like a deterrent, " he says. If successful, WSPA will consider

developing kits for other animals threatened by trade such as tiger,

musk deer, shark and whale.

 

It is ironic that traditional medicine is endangering bears, as the

animals' unique physiology could help us develop new drugs, says

Chivian, an expert on the importance of biodiversity to human health.

 

Bears remain inactive for up to seven months during hibernation

without developing osteoporosis. They also do not urinate in that

time. Instead, they recycle their urea, using it to make amino acids

to manufacture new protein.

 

 

REF:newscientist