CHINESE GOVERNMENT DEFENDS BEAR BILE FARMS

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http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/13/content_511872.htm

Extraction of bear bile 'painless, necessary'

By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)

Updated: 2006-01-13 05:46

Illegal raising of bears or extracting their bile in a cruel manner

will attract severe penalties, a senior wildlife official said

yesterday in Beijing.

But approved bear farms will continue to exist in China for the time

being, as painlessly-extracted bile is crucial for medical purposes,

he said, adding that farming has vastly helped prevent poaching.

 

A drug that contains bear bile is shown in this file photo.

" Before we find good alternatives for bear bile, we do not have a

timetable to eliminate the practice (extracting bile from the

gallbladder of farmed bears), " Wang Wei, deputy chief of the

Department of Wildlife Conservation under the State Forestry

Administration, told a press conference.

It was organized by the State Council Information Office in response

to foreign media's concerns about bile extraction and other

animal-welfare issues.

Bear bile, considered an indispensable ingredient in traditional

Chinese medicine, is used in 123 drugs and has an efficacy not matched

by any other substitute, Wang said.

As a result, a host of patients rely on bile-containing medicines for

treatment. " So we must consider both the needs of medical treatment

and the protection of wild bears, and find a win-win solution, " Wang

said.

Bear farms for extracting bile were set up in the mid-80s as a way to

stop hunting of the endangered and protected animals in China, Wang

said.

He cited statistics as saying one bear in a farm prevents 220 being

killed in the wild for their bile.

When bile-extraction technology was introduced to China, some used

surgically-implanted metal tubes, causing tremendous pain to the

animals, Wang said.

" That was a practice we are opposed to, " he said, adding it happened

before China's Wildlife Protection Law was enacted in 1988.

Since then, China has been using advanced techniques, such as tubes

made of bear tissue, to make the process painless.

In addition to capping production of bile powder, illegal or

substandard farms have been shut down, reducing the number of farms

from at least 480 in the early 1990s to 68 fully regulated ones, where

about 7,000 bears live in a suitable environment.

" The cruel farming practice has basically been abolished, " Wang said.

But he said some organizations or individuals are still using old

videos or photos or illegal farms to exaggerate the current situation.

" This distorts the facts and misleads donors into providing money, " he said.

Other issues addressed by officials at the press conference:

Skinning animals: Cases of animals such as dogs and cats skinned alive

is sporadic in some areas, Yu Fachang, a division director of the

State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said.

Shark fin: Yu said Chinese consumers are being advised to change their

dietary habits and eat as few fins as possible.

Li Yanliang, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture, said China

strictly adheres to the Convention on International Trade in

Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, and has not violated the

ban on fishing of whale shark, basking shark or great white shark

listed in the convention.

Dog killing: Guo Weimin, chief of the news department of the State

Council Information Office, refuted some recent foreign media reports

of public dog-killing campaigns in Guangzhou of South China and some

other cities.

Since illegally-raised or abandoned dogs were attacking at least two

people a day in Guangzhou posing a rabies threat local authorities

last year conducted a one-month campaign in September to protect

people's lives, Guo said.

(China Daily 01/13/2006 page1)