Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

Vietnam's illegal bile trade traps thousands of bears in agony

Rate this topic


Guest guest

Recommended Posts

Agence France Presse -- English

January 16, 2007 Tuesday 2:53 AM GMT

 

HEADLINE: Vietnam's illegal bile trade traps thousands of bears in agony

 

BYLINE: Frank Zeller

 

DATELINE: HANOI, Jan 16 2007

 

 

Near-demented and with bloodshot eyes, a large Asiatic black bear is

trapped inside a rusty cage barely larger than its hefty body in the

dank backroom of a hotel near Hanoi.

 

 

 

The owner beats the cage with a stick to stir the tormented beast and

hails the medicinal benefits of the bile siphoned from its gall

bladder, a practice animal welfare and environmental groups are

trying to stamp out.

 

 

 

Keeping bears caged for commercial purposes has been banned in

Vietnam for nearly two years. But experts say 4,000-5,000 remain

trapped, many of them feeding the illicit trade, sometimes in battery

farms with hundreds of bears.

 

 

 

" Everywhere you look in Vietnam, you will see bear bile openly for sale, "

 

said Tim Knight of the non-profit group Wildlife At Risk (WAR).

 

 

 

" Wild bears in Vietnam are dangerously close to extinction, and the

main reason is the bear farms. "

 

 

 

Asiatic black bears -- also known as moon bears for the distinctive

white crescent marking on their chests -- have long been trapped and

" milked " in Vietnam and China for their bile, hailed by some

traditional medicine practitioners as a health tonic or a cure for a

wide range of ailments.

 

 

 

The " mat gau " has been praised for relieving pain, liver and heart

ailments, as an anti-inflammatory and aphrodisiac, an elixir that

reduces " heat " and the effects of alcohol. It has even been mixed

into eye drops and shampoos.

 

 

 

" Drinking bile can help reduce the harmful effects of alcohol, " said

Vu Duy Tien, owner of the Tien Tuu Quan traditional alcohol bar in

Hanoi, who sells a cubic centimetre (half-inch) of the liquid for

around 80,000 dong (five dollars).

 

 

 

" It also makes you less drunk and increases men's sexual performance, " he says.

 

 

 

" It's become a cure-all, " said Knight. " That's the problem we're

grappling with, something that is steeped deeply in cultural

traditions. "

 

 

 

The liquid is extracted through metal pipes in the crude

" free-dripping technique " or, in more sophisticated operations, with

sterile syringes and using ultrasound equipment to locate the gall

bladder.

 

 

 

The animals, usually moon bears and sometimes Malayan sun bears,

typically languish in cages so small they can barely move, causing

stress that sees some of them bang their heads against the bars and

chew their paws.

 

 

 

Under international pressure from animal welfare groups decrying the

practice as barbaric, Vietnam, unlike its northern neighbour China,

outlawed the commercial trade in bear products in March 2005.

 

 

 

But, faced with the logistical challenge of rounding up and keeping

thousands of the animals, authorities effectively turned a blind eye

to existing operations while trying to stop new farms or the import

of bear cubs.

 

 

 

-- Despite ban, trade in questionable cure-all flourishes --

 

 

 

In the lead-up to the ban, WAR helped pilot a project in 2004-05 to

catalogue and microchip all the bears in captivity. The Forest

Protection Department was tasked with ensuring no new animals enter

the system.

 

 

 

" After the ban, authorities allowed people who already had

micro-chipped bears to keep them under the condition that they are no

longer exploited in any way, " said Sulma Warne, TRAFFIC's Greater

Mekong Programme Coordinator.

 

 

 

" The expectation is that these bears are supposed to be kept in a

humane way until they die, and that their bile is not allowed to be

extracted, kept or sold. But in reality this is very difficult to

enforce, largely as a result of very limited financial and human

resources. "

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the trade appears to be flourishing.

 

 

 

" You can step into almost any traditional medicine seller, and

they'll open the fridge and sell you a five-millilitre vial for

60,000 dong, " said Warne.

 

 

 

With most of Vietnam's forests now almost emptied of bears and other

wildlife by hunting, poachers have turned to Laos, Cambodia and

further afield to catch hundreds of bear cubs a year and smuggle them

into Vietnam.

 

 

 

" A baby cub costs about 100 dollars, " said Warne. " They fatten them

up, and when they are about six months or a year old, they start the

tapping process. "

 

 

 

There is a glimmer of hope for at least some of the animals. The Hong

Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation is now building a bear sanctuary

for 200 bears north of Hanoi, having set up a similar site in China.

 

 

 

The group plans to open a quarantine station for 50 bears by April

and is waiting for government approval to expand the centre across 12

hectares (30 acres) of enclosures and rehabilitation areas for

severely disabled bears.

 

 

 

" We will use the centre to raise awareness, because at the moment

people really don't have much of a concept about bear conservation

and welfare, "

 

said the foundation's country representative Tuan Bendixsen.

 

 

 

" It will also mean the government can really enforce the law. At the

moment if they want to confiscate a bear, they have nowhere to take

it. If someone really breaks the law, mistreating an animal or

hunting them, they can confiscate right away and show the public 'we

can do it if we want to'. "

 

 

 

But with room for only 200 bears at the centre, thousands more will

remain trapped in cages, while the trade flourishes in a country now

seeing rapid economic growth.

 

 

 

AAF executive director Annie Mather said that setting up the centre

would cost up to three million US dollars, and it would eventually

have similar staff numbers as its facility in China, where 140

workers now care for 170 bears.

 

 

 

" The purpose is to help the bears but at the same time highlight the

whole issue, the cruelty of bear farming, and to highlight the point

that bear farming is not necessary because there are many herbal

alternatives, " she said, speaking from AAF headquarters in Hong Kong.

 

 

 

" We'll have the alternative herbs there, and a herb garden. "

 

 

 

-- Awareness is key to wiping out the cruelty --

 

 

 

The animals brought into the new centre would be confiscated by the

Forestry Department from illegal bear farms, and the foundation had

no plans to pay compensation to the owners, as it does in China where

the trade is legal, Mather said.

 

 

 

The question of compensation would " be up to the government, " she said.

 

 

 

" We're not involved in any compensation effort at this point. Bear

farming is illegal, so presumably people who are doing it are

breaking the law, and presumably the government can confiscate them. "

 

 

 

The key to ending the practice, campaigners say, is changing attitudes.

 

 

 

TRAFFIC and the Worldwide Fund for Nature plan to launch a public

awareness campaign soon with advertising group Saatchi and Saatchi to

dispel the myths about the so-called health benefits of bear bile and

highlight the trade's impact on Southeast Asian wildlife.

 

 

 

Non-profit group Education for Nature Vietnam plans to take its

public information campaign " Bring Peace to Vietnam's Bears " to Ho

Chi Minh City in the first half of 2007, following a similar show in

Hanoi late last year.

 

 

 

The first exhibition, which drew local celebrities and featured a

walk-in bear " torture chamber, " will also be replicated in a mobile

Wildlife Awareness Unit set to tour the country, aiming to target

consumers and their children.

 

 

 

" Bear farming is a hot issue in Vietnam, it's an environmental and an

animal welfare issue, " said the group's programme director Nguyen

Phuong Dung.

 

 

 

" We hope that our exhibition will change people's ideas and attitudes. "

 

 

--

Annie Mather

Executive Director, Head of Media

Animals Asia Foundation

Hong Kong

 

Find out more about the " China Bear Rescue " and " Friends....or Food? "

http://www.animalsasia.org

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...