(CN) Long-suffering moon bear needs Beijing's help

[Guest guest]

South China Morning Post

http://focus.scmp.com/focusnews/ZZZDY3T9Z0D.html

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

by JILL ROBINSON

 

Known as the moon bear because of the beautiful yellow crescent on its

chest, the Asiatic Black Bear is perhaps the most ill-treated creature in

the world.

 

Listed in the highest category of endangered species, this gentle,

inquisitive bear is exploited across Asia for entertainment, food, trophies

and medicine.

 

One of the key factors in their rapidly diminishing population is the

demand for their gall bladders and bile juice, which is used predominantly

as a ''heat-reducing'' component in traditional medicine across Asia.

 

In South Korea, where a single gall bladder can cost US$10,000

(HK$78,000), the once-abundant bear has been hunted almost to extinction.

 

In the early 1980s, despite the plentiful herbal and synthetic

alternatives, countries such as North Korea, China and Vietnam began to

search for an alternative to taking an animal from the wild and killing it

for a tiny organ. North Korea was the first to announce it had developed a

unique method of obtaining this ''liquid gold'' - the practice of bear

farming was born.

 

Bears were taken as cubs from the wild, caged and surgically implanted

with metal catheters, so that bile could be extracted on a regular basis

while keeping the animal alive. A few years later, Chinese scientists

adopted the same procedure and by the early 1990s there were nearly 500

mainland farms, holding more than 10,000 bears.

 

Today, Animals Asia is the guardian of 65 rescued moon bears in China,

having signed a pact with authorities in Beijing and Sichuan province in

July 2000 that promised to rescue 500 bears from the worst farms and to

co-operate to end bear farming.

 

Although the central Government has endorsed our agreement and issued

no more bear farm licences, the absence of an ''official'' government policy

nationwide frustrates the rescue. While we have received nothing but

encouragement and help from our government partners in what is the largest

wild animal rescue of its kind, our greatest fear lies with other officials

who wish bear farming to continue.

 

The China Bear Rescue programme is seen as a wake-up call for

protecting the animal before it is too late, and for promoting animal-free

medicine. Many more people worldwide would endorse and finance an

accelerated rescue, if backed by central government policy.

 

Today, there are officially 7,002 bears on 247 farms in China, and

they have created a host of new problems for wild bears as the stimulated

demand sees them poached for their whole gall bladders by illegal hunters,

and also often illegally trapped as new stock for the farms.

 

In Vietnam, the situation for moon bears is out of control. With what

is thought to be less than 100 surviving in the wild, the number of bear

farms has exploded from a few hundred in 1999 to as many as 5,000 today.

 

South Korea banned bear farming in 1992, but 1,400 bears remain on

defunct farms.

 

Conditions on farms are unbelievably cruel. In China, moon bears are

confined for up to 22 years in cages the size of their own bodies and milked

daily for their bile through rusting catheters implanted deep into their

gall bladders. A new technique called ''free dripping'', uses no implant but

also sees a high mortality rate due to bile leakage, widespread infection

and peritonitis.

 

Our belief is simple. By helping the individual bears, we can work

towards our higher goal of helping them all as a species.

 

When new bears arrive by the truck-load at our rescue centre in

Chengdu, Sichuan province, it is a harrowing time for all. Still in their

tiny wire cages, they present the grim reality of bear farming as we see

vicious scars from where they have literally grown into the bars, missing

limbs from being trapped in the wild, teeth and claws deliberately cut back

to take away their defences, and gaping infected holes in their abdomens

from which catheters - up to 18cm long - protrude.

 

Understandably, they are demented with fear and frighteningly

aggressive as they crash their bodies against the sides of the cages and

exhibit severe stereotypic behaviour as a result of being ''cage crazy''.

 

Yet within weeks their transformation is remarkable. Our surgical

team, led by Hong Kong veterinarian Gail Cochrane, prepares them for surgery

which can last up to eight hours, followed by months of physiotherapy and

integration.

 

Today, the disabled bears that had lost one and even two limbs in

traps, jockey for position at feeding times, skilfully manoeuvring

neighbours out of the way in their greed for a taste of their favourite

treat - honey - while the able-bodied bears are running on grass and

tussling together in bouts which would put world-class wrestlers to shame.

 

In anticipation of receiving a further 40 caged bears in the next few

weeks, we remain focused in our goal of continuing the rescue - and ending

this unnecessary and unconscionable practice by the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

 

Jill Robinson, MBE, is the founder and chief executive officer of Hong

Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation. She can be reached at

www.animalsasia.org.