The inhumane exploitation of bears for traditional Asian medicine (long)

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http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051015/bob10.asp

 

Week of Oct. 15, 2005; Vol. 168, No. 16 , p. 250

 

A Galling Business

 

The inhumane exploitation of bears for traditional

Asian medicine

Janet Raloff

 

As a consultant to the International Fund for Animal

Welfare, Jill Robinson walked onto her first bear farm

12 years ago. At this facility in southern China, she

found each bear standing not on a solid floor but on

bars in a cage too small for the animal to take even

one step. Although the Asiatic black bear is normally

a solitary and clean animal, these cages were crowded

together in buildings that could only be described as

" filthy, " Robinson reports.

 

Worst of all, she says, was the bears' evident

suffering. Many had gnawed at the bars of the cages

until their teeth cracked. Some repeatedly banged

their heads against the bars, and most had open

wounds.

 

The purpose of these farms was to supply bear bile—a

prized ingredient in many traditional Chinese-medicine

therapies. In powders, pills, and liquids, it's used

to treat conditions including eyesight problems and

what Chinese practitioners call " liver fire. "

 

Traditional medicine has been driving an active trade

in bear bile and gallbladders, which produce it. Sales

flourish despite a longstanding, near-global ban

administered by the United Nations on international

trade in bear parts and products.

 

In China, wild Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus)

are protected as endangered. However, it's legal there

to sell bile from bears on licensed farms.

 

Animal-protection groups have estimated that about

half of the world's Asiatic black bears reside in

cages on farms, primarily in China, Vietnam, and

Korea. Some farms have just one bear;

others—especially in China—can have several thousand.

Each bear is milked regularly for bile in a painful

and physically harmful procedure, or the bear is

killed and bile is extracted from its gallbladder.

 

On subsequent farm visits, Robinson witnessed the

staff extracting bile from bears by unplugging metal

catheters that had been permanently inserted into

their gallbladders. The bile dripped into collection

pans beneath the cages. Seeing such " inhumane " animal

treatment, Robinson recalls, " changed the course of my

life. "

 

Within 5 years, she had set up the Hong Kong–based

Animals Asia Foundation. It operates a 25-acre

sanctuary at Chengdu in China's Sichuan Province that

currently houses 168 bears rescued from farms that

have shut down. Robinson is also working to find

places for additional bears expected to become

available in the near future.

 

Vietnam is a major bear-farming nation, despite laws

that forbid the practice. Recently, an animal-welfare

group negotiated with that country to enforce its laws

and phase out bear farms. New technologies are being

developed for policing this agreement and the

international-trade ban. These tools are expected to

come into use within the next year.

 

In North America, hunters kill American black bears

and sell the gallbladders illegally. Although these

bears aren't considered endangered, special agent

Allen Hundley of the Fredericksburg, Va., office of

the Fish and Wildlife Service notes that any time an

unregulated market " puts a price on the head of

wildlife, " as it has on bears for their gallbladders,

the future of that wildlife is in serious jeopardy.

 

Bear facts

 

Estimates remain sketchy, but wild populations of

Asiatic black bears seem to have dropped to about

15,000 animals throughout all of Asia, says Dave

Eastham of the World Society for the Protection of

Animals (WSPA) in London.

 

Trafficking in bear parts is largely responsible for

this decline, according to the Gland,

Switzerland–based World Conservation Union. The group

concludes that this species faces " a high risk of

extinction in the wild in the medium term. "

 

Heavy poaching prompted China, 25 years ago, to move

some bears to licensed facilities. The resulting farms

were expected to supply all the bile needed to fulfill

traditional medicine's demand—then about 500 kilograms

of bile per year—says Eastham.

 

However, traditional medicine's bile consumption has

now reached 4,000 to 5,000 kg per year worldwide, he

reports. China's farmers manage at least 7,000 bears,

and Vietnamese farms harvest bile from an estimated

4,000 bears.

 

Another 1,800 bears are caged in South Korea, but they

aren't milked for bile. Instead, when they turn 10

years old, they're killed and their gallbladders

harvested, Eastham says. In the wild, Asia's black

bears can survive to nearly 30 years old.

 

Today, supplies of farmed and poached bear bile exceed

demand for bile used in Asian medicine, perhaps by up

to 2,000 kg per year, Eastham's group reports. So, a

luxury market in Asia now offers consumer products

that brag of their bear-bile content. They run the

gamut—from hemorrhoid creams to shampoos to wines.

 

" Rather than supplying existing bile demand, " Eastham

argues, " farming actually increased it. "

 

The chemical of interest is ursodeoxycholic acid,

which has been found only in bear bile. At least a few

scientific studies of the compound have supported

traditional Chinese medicine's claim that bile

products benefit the liver, according to TRAFFIC North

America, a joint program of the World Conservation

Union and the Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund,

which studies international trade in threatened and

endangered species.

 

An April 2002 report by the group TRAFFIC North

America cites research finding that ursodeoxycholic

acid has some effect against autoimmune hepatitis,

viral hepatitis, and other liver diseases. The bile

agent also appears to improve immunity and prevent

colon cancer, TRAFFIC North America notes.

 

Although the compound can be synthesized from other

sources, many traditional healers still recommend the

bear version, Eastham's group has found.

 

Prices for bile and gallbladders vary dramatically.

Asian smugglers have told U.S. Fish and Wildlife

agents that gallbladders can fetch $10,000 apiece.

WSPA cites market studies indicating that bile powder

can cost as little as 24 cents a gram at bear farms in

China but as much to $28 a gram in Taiwan and $250 a

gram in Japan, two places where bear bile is illegal.

 

Cruel and unusual

 

International animal-protection groups have taken on

the issue of farmed bile because of the heavy price

that the bears pay. The Animals Asia Foundation has

documented that price among the bears that it has

rescued.

 

Most of the animals lack wilderness-survival skills

after having spent most or all of their lives in

captivity. Moreover, most carry substantial injuries:

missing teeth, missing limbs, and severely damaged

internal organs.

 

More than 85 percent of rescued bears suffer abdominal

adhesions that bind organs to one another and to the

abdominal wall, says Kati Loeffler, the veterinarian

at the foundation's sanctuary in Chengdu. Some 10

percent of bears also have liver tumors.

 

Shortly after the animals enter the sanctuary, they

have their gallbladders surgically removed. " We do

this, " Loeffler explains, " because those gallbladders

are just a horrible mess. " Nearly all these have

polyps, and many contain old, pus-filled abscesses,

which are " an indication of long-term trauma and

infection, " she says.

 

These health conditions reflect repeated trauma, such

as from nonsterile surgery to insert a catheter or

repeatedly piercing the gallbladder to drain bile,

Loeffler says. In one such technique, Robinson notes,

Chinese farmers stitch the gallbladder to the

abdominal wall, pierce it, and then prevent the wound

from healing. For each bile extraction, the

gallbladder is repunctured—sometimes twice a day,

without anesthetic.

 

These animals are amazingly tough, Loeffler says:

" Only a bear could handle such trauma. Any other

species would have died. "

 

Stung, twice

 

An illegal trade in bears and their parts exists even

in the United States. During the past year, federal

prosecutions were brought against three hunters in

Alaska for killing 10 bears to harvest their

gallbladders for sale in Korea. Biologists surveying

salmon runs uncovered the kills (see " Snaring

Poachers, " below).

 

But the Alaska haul pales in comparison with the 118

gallbladders—now frozen and in federal custody—that

were purchased from a single person as part of an

earlier sting. The major undercover program—Special

Operation to Uncover Poaching (SOUP)—investigated

illegal trafficking in bear parts in the Mid-Atlantic

region.

 

Run cooperatively in the late 1990s by the U.S. Park

Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, SOUP

found that bear parts traded in the region came

largely from animals taken in Virginia, where bear

hunting is legal.

 

However, because the state prohibits the sale of bear

parts, these hunters marketed the animals'

gallbladders and paws—a delicacy used in some Asian

soups—to a broker in West Virginia, where trade in

bear parts was then legal. That broker, in turn, sold

the gallbladders and paws to Asian buyers living in

the United States.

 

The most satisfying aspect of SOUP, Hundley says, was

that " we exposed West Virginia as a laundering haven

for bear gallbladders that were acquired illegally

elsewhere. " Shortly afterward, in 1999, West Virginia

closed this loophole by outlawing the sale of paws and

organs of even legally killed bears.

 

Yet that didn't end the region's bear poaching, notes

Skip Wissinger, a Park Service special agent in the

Shenandoah National Park's Elkton, Va., office. Using

information acquired in SOUP, his team and state

officers set up a second, more complicated sting

operation. Undercover agents opened a sporting-goods

store in Elkton. Under the counter, however, they

provided bear parts from road kill, previous busts

such as SOUP, and a federal forensic lab in Oregon.

 

For 3 years, each gallbladder sale was recorded on

tape. Unlike SOUP, which focused on hunters and

wholesalers, this sting—Operation VIPER, for Virginia

Interagency Effort to Protect Environmental

Resources—targeted consumers.

 

The agents had expected most of the bear parts to be

exported. The " surprise, " Wissinger says, was that

" well over half of what we sold went to a domestic

market " of traditional Chinese- and Korean-medicine

distributors, largely along the Mid-Atlantic seaboard.

 

 

Growing sales to U.S. consumers have created a local

black market in bear parts that " appears absolutely

insatiable, " Wissinger told Science News. " We just

couldn't begin to keep up with what we had been asked

to supply. "

 

From VIPER, hundreds of felony charges were leveled

against some 80 defendants for trafficking in bear

parts. In the 40 cases that have been settled in

Virginia state courts, all the defendants were found

guilty, Wissinger says. The other cases are still

wending their way through federal courts, where

prosecution is more difficult and cases take longer,

but where the penalties may be greater.

 

Still, Wissinger adds that he's certain that his

team's sting didn't end the local black marketEthough

we might have slowed it some. "

 

Tech support

 

Although bear farming in Vietnam has been illegal for

years, Eastham notes that the government turned a

blind eye to most of these mom-and-pop operations,

which have only one or two bears apiece. But this

year, WSPA—on behalf of its 500 member

societies—brokered a deal with Hanoi officials for

Vietnam to enforce its laws.

 

Vietnamese officials will prevent the sale of bile,

but will permit farms to keep the bears they now own.

The officials plan to implant microchips, whose

purchase may be partially subsidized by WSPA, in the

shoulders of all bears on farms.

 

Similar to the identification chips implanted in many

pet dogs, these chips would give each bear a unique ID

number, record when the tag was implanted, and carry

the farm's address. Monitoring agencies could send

people around every 6 months or so to scan bears and

generate readouts of their implanted data. This

procedure would prevent the farms from replenishing

their stock when a bear died.

 

The government is " being pragmatic " in letting farmers

keep their bears for now, Eastham says, since it's a

violation of international law to kill the endangered

animals and sanctuaries can't spring up overnight to

absorb several thousand bears. Moreover, the program

should finally end Vietnam's rampant problem with

capture of wild bears for farming, he says, since the

monitoring agencies would prosecute anyone harboring

bears without a chip.

 

Eastham told Science News that currently, in South

Korea, " we're in negotiations with government

officials to see if they won't go down the same road

as Vietnam. "

 

Last year, Kate Sanders, a herpetologist in Adelaide,

Australia, who works with WSPA, came up with the idea

for another antipoaching technology. Inspired by snake

venom-detection kits, she says, she suggested a tool

to enable customs officials and other law-enforcement

agents to test for the presence of bear proteins in

suspicious materials within just 5 minutes.

 

Geneticist Rob Ogden of Wildlife DNA Services in

Bangor, Wales, is managing the assay's development. It

will employ the dipstick technology typical of

pregnancy-test kits. The assay contains antibodies to

characteristic proteins found only in bears. These

antibodies are attached to a dye. If they contact a

bear protein, they will bind and create a telltale

blue line.

 

Ogden says, " We hope to have the kits ready for

testing by June 2006. "

 

Yet another WSPA program is fashioning a decidedly

low-tech program aimed at stemming demand for bear

bile and gallbladders. Susan Sherwin in the group's

Framingham, Mass., office is working with Eastham to

compile a list of plant-based products that some

traditional Asian-medicine practitioners prescribe in

place of bile. Among the dozens of materials that

they've turned up so far: aloe vera, ash bark,

dandelion, and honeysuckle flowers. The alternatives'

activity depends on chemicals other than

ursodeoxycholic acid.

 

WSPA is currently surveying traditional-medicine

practitioners worldwide about the conditions and

circumstances under which they prescribe these plant

materials. Over the next year, WSPA plans to begin

publicizing the results to traditional Asian healers

in hopes of encouraging more of them to substitute

herbal products for bile.

 

One thing working in his favor, Eastham notes, is that

the plant products all " are a lot cheaper than bile. "

 

Snaring Poachers: It's Often the Hard Part

 

Feds prosecute Alaskan bear poaching

 

In September 2002, biologists under contract to

ExxonMobil Corp. repeatedly visited a small stream on

heavily wooded Chenega Island in Alaska's Prince

William Sound. Their goal: to tally spawning pink

salmon. At this time of year, creeks are normally

" thick with bears, " which fatten up on those salmon in

preparation for winter hibernation, notes Shawn

Haskell, now at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. His

team therefore had anticipated spying the powerful

predators at virtually every stream.

 

Instead, during three successive visits to this

island, some 50 miles off the mainland town of Seward,

the biologists found snares suspended along bear paths

and the nearly intact carcasses of bears missing only

their gallbladders and the occasional paw.

State and federal investigators would later find the

animals' gallbladders in coolers aboard a boat

anchored just off the island.

 

Although Alaska permits hunting of its native American

black bears, a license permits the taking of only one

bear, and a hunter must bring home its coat and skull.

When caught at Chenega Island, the boat owner Kwan Su

Yi and his two hunting partners had five gallbladders,

11 paws, a bear head—and no fur skins, notes Special

Agent Jill Birchell of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service in Anchorage. Search warrants turned up still

more gallbladders in Yi's home freezer.

 

Yi admitted to federal investigators that he and his

companions intended to smuggle their booty to Korea,

where a single gallbladder can fetch $3,500 from

purveyors of natural medicines. Despite a host of

herbal alternatives, many traditional Asian healers

continue to prescribe bear bile, which can be obtained

from the gallbladder, to treat a range of health

conditions. This market has been driving an active

trade in bear products despite a longstanding

near-global ban on international trade in bear parts.

The vast majority of medicinal bile comes from farmed

bears in China and Vietnam. Organs plundered from

North American bears supplement this source.

 

Over a 6-month period ending last March, the three

poachers—all Korean immigrants—pled guilty to felony

violations of the Lacey Act. This federal law

prohibits trade of wildlife that was acquired in

violation of local state law and also transported

across that state's border. The law also covers the

intention to carry out such trade.

 

Yi was sentenced this past March to a year in jail, to

be followed by 3 years probation. He forfeited his

22-foot boat, a rifle, and a 40-caliber handgun. Over

the next 4 years, he cannot apply for a hunting

license or possess any bear parts. His brother-in-law,

James Ho Moon, who was part of the bear-hunting party,

received no jail time but some $1,600 in fines and

fees, 3 years probation, and must do 160 hours of

community service.

 

The final participant in the Chenega Island bear

plundering incidents was Tae Won Ro. Birchell says

that Ro " admitted that it was sort of his idea to get

these other two men involved [in the venture], having

learned the [snaring] technique from another

individual. " With a prior criminal conviction for

domestic violence, Ro proved willing to cooperate with

Birchell's team on piecing together various elements

of this case.

 

In the end, he gave evidence that showed that his team

had killed 16 bears during five separate trips to the

island. Ro's sentence: 9 months house detention with

electronic monitoring to be followed by 3 years

probation. He was also assessed roughly $5,000 in

fines and fees.

 

Such convictions are rare, Birchell notes. The U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service has just 219 agents

nationally, which includes managers and supervisory

staff, to investigate potential incidents affecting

any type of wildlife. Moreover, bears tend to inhabit

extremely remote locations. Finally, even when someone

is found with bear parts, such as gallbladders,

Birchell points out that it's daunting to prove that

they were both acquired illegally and intended for

sale across state boundaries.

 

Indeed, she told Science News, the relative ease with

which her team mounted a case against these men

reflected their ignorance of the law. " They assumed

that they were maybe going to get a ticket for a game

violation, " she says. If they had realized that their

actions constituted a federal felony, she notes, " they

might not have been so forthcoming when we interviewed

them. "

 

Gruesome encounter

 

In a state as big as Alaska, " it would be very easy to

get away with this snaring, " Haskell says. It was just

the poachers' bad luck that they chose to plunder

their prey on one of four streams being surveyed every

4 days by wildlife biologists.

 

Haskell's group spied the first snared bear some 200

yards inside the tree line on Chenega Island. The bear

had a noose of wire around its neck that was cabled to

a small, nearby tree.

 

Respectful of the frightened animal's power, the

biologists shot at the wire anchoring the snare.

Suddenly, the bear snapped the frayed wire and bounded

away, the noose still tightly cinched around its neck.

 

 

When the biologists next returned to the island, they

found that the poachers had preceded them. Along the

stream they encountered carcasses of snared bears.

Each animal had a slit down its abdomen, several cut

ribs, a missing gallbladder, and snaring gear still

attached to a nearby sapling.

 

Team leader Bill Wilson, now with the North Pacific

Fishery Management Council in Anchorage, recalls one

of those visits to Chenega Island, a day dreary with a

heavy downpour that dogged their trek. While counting

fish, he and his partner, geneticist Matt Cronin, soon

came upon one dead bear on its back with a small area

of its belly sliced open. Later that day, the pair ran

across carcasses of two older cubs, also missing their

gallbladders.

 

Cronin collected tissue samples so that that DNA might

later be used to identify any gallbladders found on

the black market.

 

In fact, Birchell notes, such tissue samples helped

seal the federal convictions that the bear parts found

in Yi's possession came from the illegally poached

Chenega Island animals.

 

The biologists alerted state troopers about the

snares. Those state wildlife officers arrived and

confirmed the bear poaching. A few days later, using a

seaplane, those state troopers found Yi's boat

anchored near the headwaters of the little salmon

stream. Almost immediately, they called in federal

officials to help them investigate the extent of the

poaching.

 

No national bear-protection law

 

The nation's black bears currently number between

300,000 and 400,000. Of these, roughly one-third roam

Alaska's wooded terrain, notes Adam Roberts of Born

Free USA in Washington, D.C.

 

Protection for these animals varies widely by state.

For instance, Idaho, Maine, New York, Vermont, and

Wyoming all permit an unrestricted trade in bear gall

bladders, he notes, whereas 34 other states prohibit

trade, sale, or commercialization of any bear parts.

The remaining states—most of which have few wild

bears—permit the sale of gall bladders if the organs

come from animals harvested outside their borders,

Roberts says.

 

The problem, he notes, is that without DNA to tie a

particular gall bladder to a carcass, no one can know

for sure in what state it was collected. The only way

to arrest the problem, Roberts says, " is to enact a

national prohibition on trade in bears. "

 

About a decade ago, he helped draft legislation to do

just that. However, despite having had considerable

bipartisan support in the Congress—for instance, it

won Senate passage several times—it has yet to pass

the House of Representatives.

 

Roberts hopes to see the bill reintroduced in the next

year or two. At present, he says, this legislation is

" hibernating. "

 

--

 

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References:

 

2005. Vietnamese government to phase out bear farming.

World Society for the Protection of Animals news

release. March 11. Available at

http://www.wspa.org.uk/index.php?page=1163.

 

2004. Six Anchorage residents charged with illegally

snaring black bears and trafficking in black bear gall

bladders/Air taxi charged with illegal operation in

refuge. United States Attorney's Office news release.

Feb. 21.

 

1999. Enrolled-Senate Bill No. 525 (By Senators,

Dittmar, Schoonover, Helmick, Anderson, Love, Ross,

Ball, Hunter and Sharpe). March 12.

 

1999. SOUP delivers federal indictments: U.S. Attorney

ready to prosecute. Federal Wildlife Officers

Association news release. March 11.

 

Tuan, H.C. 2005. Memorandum of Understanding:

Phase-out of bear farms in Vietnam. World Society for

the Protection of Animals. February.

 

Williamson, D.F. 2002. In the Black: Status,

Management, and Trade of the American Black Bear

(Ursus americanus) in North America. Washington, D.C.:

TRAFFIC North America. Available at

http://www.traffic.org/news/black_bear_sec1.pdf and

http://www.traffic.org/news/black_bear_sec2.pdf.

 

Further Readings:

 

2005. Bear gallbladder sting leads to arrest in Mac.

McMinnville, (Ore.) Daily News-Register. June 18.

Available at

http://www.newsregister.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=195030.

 

Joling, D. 2005. Anchorage man sentenced in bear

poaching case. Anchorage Daily News. March 2.

Available at

http://www.adn.com/outdoors/hunting/story/6226418p-6101440c.html.

 

Phillps. T., and P. Wilson, eds. 2002. The Bear Bile

Business: The global trade in bear products from China

to Asia and beyond. London: World Society for the

Protection of Animals. Available at

http://www.wspa.ca/reports/thebearbilebusiness/1-14.pdf.

 

Raloff, J. 2005. A fishy therapy. Science News

167(March 5):154-156. Available at

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050305/bob9.asp.

 

______. 2002. Clipping the fin trade. Science News

162(Oct. 12):232-234. Available at

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20021012/bob10.asp.

 

______. 1999. Rarest of the rare. Science News

156(Sept. 4):153-154. Available at

http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/9_4_99/bob1.htm.

 

______. 1999. Chinese supplement lowers cholesterol.

Science News 155(April 17):255. References and sources

available at

http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/4_17_99/note5ref.htm.

 

______. 1999. Red-yeast product is no drug, court

says. Science News 155(Feb. 27):199. References and

sources available at

http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/2_27_99/fob2ref.htm.

 

 

Sources:

 

Jill Birchell

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Division of Law Enforcement

605 West 4th Avenue, Room 57

Anchorage, AK 99501

 

Dave Eastham

World Society for the Protection of Animals

14th Floor

89 Albert Embankment

London SE1 7TP

United Kingdom

 

Shawn Haskell

Texas Tech University

Department of Range, Wildlife & Fisheries Management

Mailstop 42125

102 Goddard Building

Lubbock, TX 79409

 

Allen Hundley

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Division of Law Enforcement

4900 Quality Drive

Fredericksburg, VA 22408

 

Kati Loeffler

Animals Asia Foundation

P.O. Box 374

General Post Office

Hong Kong

 

Rob Ogden

Wildlife DNA Services

9th Floor, Alan Roberts Building

University of Wales

Bangor, Wales LL57 2UW

United Kingdom

 

Adam Roberts

Born Free USA

P.O. Box 32160

Washington, DC 20007

 

Jill Robinson

Hong Kong Head Office

P.O. Box 374

General Post Office

Hong Kong

 

Kate Sanders

South Australian Museum

15 Noble Street

Ovingham, Adelaide, SA 5082

Australia

 

Susan Sherwin

World Society for the Protection of Animals

34 Deloss Street

Framingham, MA 01702

 

TRAFFIC North America

c/o World Willdlife Fund-US

1250 24th Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20037

 

Bill Wilson

North Pacific Fishery Management Council

605 West 4th Avenue, Suite 306

Anchorage, AK 99502-2252

 

Skip Wissinger

Shenandoah National Park

22591 Spotswood Trail

Elkton, VA 22827