An Australian man is on a mission to put an end to the practice of extracting bile from captive live bears.
Bear bile is a traditional component of Chinese medicine, said to cure everything from liver and digestive problems to heart conditions and even cancer.
Luke Nicholson, the project manager for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, says its use has got to stop.
“It is a cruel and barbaric practice. It is not necessary for us to use bear bile because there are many effective alternatives,” he told 7.30.
Going back well over a thousand years, wild bears were killed for their bile.
These days, farmers keep the animals in cages and extract the bile in an invasive and painful process.
The bear is removed from its cage and laid on its back.
Ultrasound is used to locate the gall bladder, then a catheter or syringe is inserted through the body cavity to extract the bile.
It is estimated that across Asia as many as 20,000 bears are kept in cramped cages, only able to take two or three paces, and often unable to stand up to their full height.
With a poor diet, limited water and often in filthy conditions, the animals are bored and stressed.
Mr Nicholson recently travelled to Vietnam to document the conditions in bear farms there.
“It is a horrific scene, it really is,” he said.
“You have got one of the most majestic animals, a very large mammal, trapped inside a cage that is literally in most cases no bigger than an old telephone booth.
“The welfare conditions are atrocious. The bears can just seem broken, have absolutely no spirit and sit looking vacantly out into the distance.”
‘It is horrifying, it is disgusting’
Keeping bears in cages is legal in Vietnam, but live bear bile extraction was outlawed in 2005.
But as Mr Nicholson discovered, many farmers are flouting the law.
“We were offered bear bile which could be produced on demand at any volume,” he said.
In Australia over the past five years, Customs has seized 270 consignments containing bear bile.
These include bear bile capsules, vials of bear bile, bear gall powder, bear pills and haemorrhoid ointments.
Chinese herbal medicine practitioner Ngaio Richards has never used bear bile and points out there are effective herbal and pharmaceutical alternatives.
It is horrifying, it is disgusting, it appals me … I want to move the world to protect animals and this is my contribution to ending the bile industry.
Luke Nicholson
“Bear bile might be prescribed for conditions such as serous conjunctivitis, for eye disorders that involve a lot of inflammation or infection,” she said.
“The question is not does bear bile work, but what can be effectively used to replace it? And there are a lot of effective ways of replacing it.”
Mr Nicholson has returned to Australia with his footage from Vietnam.
His team’s challenge is to convince overseas governments to create and enforce laws to make sure bears are no longer kept in captivity.
“It is horrifying, it is disgusting, it appals me, but I guess that is why I do what I do,” he said,
“I want to move the world to protect animals and this is my contribution to ending the bile industry.”
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