Bile bears, sometimes called battery bears, are bears kept in captivity to harvest their bile, a digestive fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which is used by some traditional Asian medicine practitioners. It is estimated that 12,000 bears are farmed for bile in China, South Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar. Demand for the bile has been found in those nations as well as in some others, such as Malaysia and Japan.
The bear species most commonly farmed for bile is the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus), although the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), brown bear (Ursus arctos) and every other East Asian bear species are also used (the only exception being the giant panda which does not produce UDCA). Both the Asiatic black bear and the sun bear are listed as Vulnerable on the Red List of Threatened Animals published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They were previously hunted for bile but factory farming has become common since hunting was banned in the 1980s.
The bile can be harvested using several techniques, all of which require some degree of surgery, and may leave a permanent fistula or inserted catheter. A significant proportion of the bears die because of the stress of unskilled surgery or the infections which may occur.
Farmed bile bears are housed continuously in small cages which often prevent them from standing or sitting upright, or from turning around. These highly restrictive cage systems and the low level of skilled husbandry can lead to a wide range of welfare concerns including physical injuries, pain, severe mental stress and muscle atrophy. Some bears are caught as cubs and may be kept in these conditions for up to 30 years.
The value of the bear products trade is estimated as high as $2 billion. The practice of factory farming bears for bile has been extensively condemned, including by Chinese physicians.
History
Bear bile and gallbladders, which store bile, are ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Its first recorded use is found in (Newly Revised Materia Medica, Tang dynasty, 659 CE). The pharmacologically active ingredient contained in bear bile and gallbladders is ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA); bears are the only mammals to produce significant amounts of UDCA.
Initially, bile was collected from wild bears which were killed and the gall and its contents cut from the body. In the early 1980s, methods of extracting bile from live bears were developed in North Korea and farming of bile bears began. This rapidly spread to China and other regions. Bile bear farms started to reduce hunting of wild bears, with the hope that if bear farms raised a self-sustaining population of productive animals, poachers would have little motivation to capture or kill bears in the wild.
The demand for bile and gallbladders exists in Asian communities throughout the world, including the European Union and the United States. This demand has led to bears being hunted in the US specifically for this purpose.
Methods of bile extraction
Several methods can be used to extract the bile. These all require surgery and include: Repeated percutaneous biliary drainage uses an ultrasound imager to locate the gallbladder, which is then punctured and the bile extracted. Permanent implantation uses a tube entered into the gallbladder through the abdomen. According to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the bile is usually extracted twice a day through such implanted tubes, producing 10–20 ml of bile during each extraction. Catheterization involves pushing a steel or perspex catheter through the bear's abdomen and into the gallbladder. The full-jacket method uses a permanent catheter tube to extract the bile which is then collected in a plastic bag set in a metal box worn by the bear. The free drip method involves making a permanent hole, or fistula, in the bear's abdomen and gallbladder, from which bile freely drips out. The wound is vulnerable to infection, and bile can leak back into the abdomen, causing high mortality rates. Sometimes, the hole is kept open with a perspex catheter, which HSUS writes causes severe pain. An AAF Vet Report states that surgeries to create free-dripping fistulae caused bears great suffering as they were performed without appropriate antibiotics or pain management and the bears were repeatedly exposed to this process as the fistulae often healed over. Removal of the whole gallbladder is sometimes used. This method is used when wild bears are killed for their bile.
It has been estimated that 50–60 per cent of bears die from complications caused by the surgery or improper post-surgical care.