South Korea Looks for Bear Farming Remedy

In South Korea, it's illegal to extract bile from live bears. While this is the type of law that shouldn't even have to be on the books, the sad reality is that it not only exists for a reason, but it's also been completely ineffective in stopping the bear bile trade from South Korea to China and Vietnam.

Bear bile is used in about 190 traditional Chinese remedies to cure ailments from eye disease to hangovers; it even shows up in shampoos and alcohol. The process of extracting it is horribly cruel — Asiatic bears, a.k.a. moon bears, are kept in tiny cages for easy access to their gall bladders, which are drained about twice a day using a crude catheter, via a permanently open abdominal wound, or some other equally painful method.

It's within the law in South Korea to farm the bears, slaughter them once they hit their 10th birthday and then sell their gallbladders. You can imagine how poorly regulated that clause about not extracting bile while they're alive must be. As long as bear farming is legal, the anti-extraction law has less teeth than the imprisoned moon bears who have been defanged and declawed to make them less dangerous.

Seems pretty obvious that if South Korea wants to stop the bear bile trade, they're going to need to ban bear farming. That's what organizations like Animals Asia have been advocating for over a decade, and the South Korean government is paying attention.

Marc Bekoff wrote about Animals Asia's Moon Bears Rescue Program in China, where they not only rescue bears from farms and poachers, but have also been successful in shutting down operations. Although there may be as many as 10,000 bears being farmed in China, Animals Asia's Jill Robinson negotiated a deal with the government; there hasn't been a new license issued for a bear farm since 1994, and 43 farms have closed.

Since 2005, Animals Asia has been working with the World Society for the Protection of Animals and Green Korea United to draw attention to bear farming in South Korea.

The Ministry of Environment has been receptive, even requesting ideas on how to phase out the cruel industry. WSPA and GKU recently provided the government with blueprints on exactly how to do just that, and a bill is now being considered by the South Korean Parliament. In preparation for the industry closing as soon as 2011, GKU visited Animals Asia's Moon Bear Rescue Centre to discuss creating a sanctuary for the estimated 1,400 bears on South Korean farms.

Shutting down the farms won't immediately shut down the trade, but it's an important step. These organizations are willing to do whatever it takes to protect Asiatic bears. Animals Asia recently sponsored a forum to engage chemists in finding substitutes for bear bile, much like the development of an artificial musk helped save male musk deer from being targeted for their glands.

Urge the South Korean government to help end the bile trade by shutting down the bear farming industry.

Photo credit: grjenkin