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THE process is meticulous: A man scans the abdomen of a sedated moon bear with ultrasound equipment, finds the gall bladder, and then his partner stabs a needle through the bear’s skin.
Drop by agonising drop, the bear’s bile is drawn out until it fills a large syringe.The graphic shots on an undercover video were taken by Animals Asia Vietnam at one of six farms housing about 80 moon bears in the north-eastern province of Quang Ninh.
 The bears – named for the distinctive yellow crescent on their chests – are locked in cages barely big enough for a human to stand in. The bile “milking” is often done under insanitary conditions, causing infections and scarring.
Such abuse would be shocking if inflicted on any animal, and the moon bear is endangered – there are only 25,000 left in the wild in North and East Asia, says the United Nations International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The bears have been hunted and caged over the years for their bile, prized as a traditional remedy that supposedly benefits the liver and improves eyesight, among other things.
It contains a substance called ursodeoxycholic acid, which some studies have shown helps treat specific types of liver disorders such as primary biliary cirrhosis, says Dr David Garshelis, co-chair of the IUCN’s bear specialist group.
Demand for the bile, along with other exotic remedies like tiger-bone “glue” and rhinoceros horn, shows no sign of abating. Across Asia and the world, invariably in developing countries, shops selling such remedies are flourishing. The greenish bile fetches between 30,000 dong (S$2.12) and 60,000 dong a millilitre in shops on Hanoi’s Lan Ong Street.
And it remains for sale in Singapore. A 2006 investigation by the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) found that 20 per cent of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shops were selling what they claimed were bear bile and gall bladder.
“The main challenge is changing a traditional mindset which continues to believe that animal parts are more potent than herbal alternatives, and that TCM ingredients which are rare and expensive are better,” says TCM practitioner Oh Soon Hock, who is also a veterinary technology lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic.
Bile supplies continue to flow despite extraction being outlawed in Vietnam, one of the key producers, since moon bears were listed on the ultra-vulnerable Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Appendix I in 2002.
But the authorities act on a tiny number of cases, says Ms Nguyen Thi Van Anh of Education for Nature Vietnam, which fights the illegal trade in wildlife.
She estimates the government prosecutes or imposes fines in only 5 per cent to 10 per cent of cases. The penalty is a fine of up to 50 million dong or six months to three years in jail.
Despite banning extraction, the Vietnamese government lets farmers keep existing bears. An adult bear costs 30 million dong while a cub costs seven million dong to 10 million dong, so the incentive to continue extracting bile under the table can be irresistible.
But other nations have cracked down. Acres and the Singapore TCM Organisations Committee have launched a labelling scheme for local shops to show they do not sell bear, tiger or rhino products.
The United States has charged several people who either killed bears for gall bladders, or bought or sold the organs.
There is hope that consumers will switch to common herbal alternatives, as there is a chemically synthesised option on sale called Urso. But TCM practitioners reject synthesised forms, presumably believing that they do not work or are just not “natural”, notes Dr Garshelis. “I am not sure how they justify bear farming as being natural,” he adds.
While younger people abandon traditional cures in favour of Western remedies, the fear is that this trend could be more than cancelled out by China’s growing number of the newly affluent who can afford pricier traditional medicines.
It could turn out that the bears at Animals Asia Vietnam’s sanctuary in Tam Dao are the lucky ones, not their wild kin facing the prospect of extinction. Despite fractured teeth, missing paws and liver and gall bladder infections, they get vet care and the run of the place in a lush grass enclosure, complete with toys.
The sanctuary welcomes visitors and plans to open an education centre.
Dr Tuan Bendixsen, director of Animals Asia Vietnam, is upbeat. “When local people visit such centres they start to make the connection that bear bile comes from these animals and is cruel.”
Healing properties
BODY parts of endangered creatures are still being used in Asia for medical reasons. They include:
RHINOCEROS HORN (Rhinoceros unicornis L.)
- Used to treat fever and infantile convulsion.
- Can be replaced by buffalo horn (Bubalus bubalis Linnaeus) or the horn of the goral (Naemorhedus goral Hardwicke), a goat-like Asian ungulate.
BEAR GALL (Selenarctos thibetanus Cuvier)
- Used to relieve heatiness, reduce inflammation and expel toxins. It is also used as an analgesic, sedative and antispasmodic. Helps in the smooth functioning of the gall bladder and improves vision.
- Can be replaced by python gall bladder (Python molurus bivittatus Schlegel) or herbal alternatives.
TIGER BONES (Panthera tigris L.)
- Used to treat convulsion and pain, and is believed to be able to strengthen the bones and calm the nerves.
PIPEFISH (Solenognathus hardwickii (Gray)
- Nourishes the yin, tonifies the kidneys, removes blood stasis and disperses growth. Has the effect of strengthening immunity.
SEA HORSE (Hippocampus Kelloggi Jordan et Snyder or Hippocampus trimaculatus Leac)
- Used to tonify the kidneys, remove blood stasis, nourish and strengthen the body. Its effect is similar to the pipefish’s.
SOURCE: DR OH SOON HOCK
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