Bear gall bladder is also used to treat serious liver ailments and as a tonic to prevent liver damage from over-consumption of alcohol. Bears are the only mammals to produce significant amounts of the bile acid tauro ursodeoxycholic or UDCA.
Is selling bear gall bladders legal in the USA?
The federal law, the Bear Protection Act, would end the USA’s participation in bear viscera commerce by prohibiting the import, export and interstate trade in bear gall bladders. Despite the fact that the majority of states currently prohibit the trade in bear parts, poaching continues to thrive
Why is bear bile so expensive?
So there’s one reason why bear gallbladders are so expensive: they have serious medicinal properties, which makes them inherently valuable. Sort of. The thing is that once modern scientists figured out this whole “bear bile actually has something really, really useful in it,” they figured out ways to get it without using actual bear bile.
How much is a bear gall bladder worth?
How much is a bear gall bladder worth? A U.S. hunter can sell a bear gallbladder for $20 to $120, with the retail price ranging from $75 to $600. Paws fetch $25 to $60 each, while a carcass or hide can range from $200 to $1,500, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
What are bears gallbladder used for?
What are bear gall bladders used for? 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 Chinese medicine practitioners.
Why is a bear gallbladder valuable?
It also treats certain kinds of cirrhosis. (There's even evidence that it inhibits the growth of tumors and thus helps prevent colon cancer.) So there's one reason why bear gallbladders are so expensive: they have serious medicinal properties, which makes them inherently valuable.
How much is a bear gallbladder worth?
A U.S. hunter can sell a bear gallbladder for $20 to $120, with the retail price ranging from $75 to $600. Paws fetch $25 to $60 each, while a carcass or hide can range from $200 to $1,500, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
What do Chinese do with bear gallbladders?
At bear bile farms in China and across Southeast Asia, the animals may be kept for decades in small cages. Bile is routinely extracted by inserting a catheter, syringe, or pipe into the gallbladder.
What is bear gallbladder used for on the black market?
The most coveted medicinal part of the bear is the bile within the gall bladder, which gram for gram can exceed the cost of narcotics.” Bile and gallbladders have been used for thousands of years in the treatment of numerous of ailments including cardiac problems, eye puffiness, asthma, cancer, burns and impotence.
What part of the bear is illegal?
California's Fish and Game Code includes a provision stating that “it is unlawful to sell or purchase, or possess for sale, the meat, skin, hide, teeth, claws, or other parts of any bear in this state” and that “the possession of more than one bear gall bladder is prima facie evidence that the bear gall bladders are ...
Is bear bile farming illegal?
In 2005, Vietnam outlawed the sale and extraction of bear bile, and the government since has announced its intention to close bear farms by 2025. Despite the ban, farmers were allowed to keep their bears, as long as they were microchipped and had been registered before 2005.
How do they extract bile from bears?
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.
How do you dry a bear's gallbladder?
Tie off the gallbladder with string. bring a pot of water to a slow boil. dip gallbladder in water for 30 seconds and hang to dry.
How much is a bear paw worth?
Bear-paw soup sells for $60 to $100 per bowl as a delicacy in some Washington restaurants, officials said, and can fetch upward of $1,000 a bowl in some Asian cities. Whether it's a "sportsman" or a poacher who puts the gall in the dealer's hand, the transaction is illegal.
Is bear bile illegal?
While the use of bear bile continues in China, it is also being used illegally in the United States.
Where are bears kept?
In China and Vietnam, where the wild bear population is low and declining, thousands of bears (mainly Asiatic black bears) are kept in cages on bear bile farms, where their bile is harvested through catheters inserted directly into their gall bladders.
What is the most coveted part of bears?
The most coveted medicinal part of the bear is the bile within the gall bladder, which gram for gram can exceed the cost of narcotics.”. Bile and gallbladders have been used for thousands of years in the treatment of numerous of ailments including cardiac problems, eye puffiness, asthma, cancer, burns and impotence.
Where was the black bear found?
The remains of a black bear cub were found in a garbage bag along the border of the Quanitco Marine Corps base and Prince William Forest Park in Virginia recently. Investigator’s found that the bear’s gallbladder was removed, and believe the mutilation was related to the international black market trade of bear bile and gallbladders, which are valuable in Asiatic medicines.
Is milking bears illegal?
This has outraged animal rights groups around the world, and though this type of ‘milking’ would be illegal in the U.S. , the large wild bear population presents a tempting target. Irregular laws and enforcement make the poaching, smuggling and sale of bear visceral products not uncommon. Photo: bobisbob. Hunting.
What is a bile bear?
Bile bear. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to navigation Jump to search. A bile bear in a "crush cage". 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.
What kind of bears produce bile?
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 species are also used (the only exception being the Giant Panda which does not produce UDCA ).
How often is bile extracted from gallbladder?
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.
How does a bear catheter work?
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 .
Why are bears hunted?
Nonetheless, bears continue to be hunted in the wild to supply the bile farms. A survey in 2000 reported that almost all of the farms in the study supplemented their captive population of bile bears with wild-caught bears. This is claimed to be necessary because of difficulties with captive breeding.
Why did bile bear farms start?
This rapidly spread to China and other regions. Bile bear farms were 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.
Why do bile bears die?
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.
What is bear bile used for?
It contains high levels of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) known to be useful for treating liver and gall bladder conditions in humans.
How is bear bile obtained?
In the past bear bile would be obtained by hunting bears in the wild and killing them to remove their gall bladder. It would have been a particularly rare and prized ingredient at the time used sparingly for specific medical conditions. In the 1980s however, bear bile farming began to be practiced as a way of constantly extracting bile for ...
Why do bears die?
Most farmed bears are starved and dehydrated as this can encourage bile production. Because of the unnatural and unhygienic conditions they are forced to live in, many also suffer from multiple diseases and malignant tumours that ultimately kill them.
Why are there so few teeth left in bears?
Most have few teeth left due to literally trying to chew their way out. In China some farms have breeding programmes, but also rely on these being added to by poaching bears from the wild. Many bears can be caged as cubs and never released, suffering up to 30 years of continuous torture by bile extraction.
Is it cruel to extract bile from bears?
2. Extracting bile from bears is as cruel and painful as you would imagine. The extraction of bear bile from live bears causes unimaginable suffering and long term health problems for these physically and psychologically damaged animals. A number of techniques exist, all of which are particularly gruesome.
Is it illegal to keep a bear in a cage in China?
Extraction methods range from “free drip” where the bear suffers a hole in their gall bladder, to the insertion of permanent catheters. Crush cages and bears locked into metal jackets have now been made illegal in China – but are likely to still be used in poorer farms.
Do bears live on bile farms?
Bears on bile farms live in isolation and cannot express any natural behaviours.
