December 4, 2000
BEIJING (CNN) -- Bear farming will be banned within 15
years under a new agreement between Chinese authorities and
animal-rights activists. The agreement comes following international
pressure to ban the practice used to obtain the bear's bile. Activists
say farming bears is unnecessary and barbaric. Bears are the only
mammals to produce significant amounts of the bile acid --
ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) -- which has been used in traditional
Oriental medicine for some 3,000 years.
In the farms, bears with catheters surgically implanted
into their gall bladders are confined in restraining cages so that bile
can be extracted. But the surgery to insert the implants is crude and
unsanitary and many of the bears die as a result. The animals that
survive spend the rest of their lives suffering a confined existence in
tiny wire crates, where they cannot even stretch, enduring painful daily
extraction of their bile.
It is a lucrative practice for the farmers. Bear bile
sells for as much as $10 a teaspoonful. It is used for by Chinese to
treat a variety of maladies, such as fever, liver illnesses and sore
eyes. But animal-rights activists say bear bile can be replaced by herbs
or synthetically made substances.
Go on to Warning:
Mushroom Alert
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