Black bear bile: Vietnam's obscene and deadly obsession
The Asiatic black bear, an endangered species, is caught in the forests of
Vietnam and Laos using crude traps made from motorcycle cables. Often the
bear loses a paw, arm or leg by the time it is retrieved by poachers who want it
as a live source of bear bile.
The trapped beast is bound in chicken wire and hidden in the back of a van or
truck to be delivered to a life of misery and suffering that will culminate in a
protracted and painful death.
Animal cruelty is completely overlooked in this illegal but tolerated medicinal
trade that has spiralled so rapidly since mid-1999 that in Vietnam there are
almost no wild bears left.
For reasons no one fully understands, in just two years the Vietnamese people
have become totally enamoured with bear bile as a miracle cure.
Its purported powers in Vietnam are without foundation. The role of bear gall
in traditional Chinese medicine is established and explains bear farming in China
- a practice being wound down - but no reputable practitioner supports the
range of diseases pure, wild bear bile is meant to cure. This includes cancer,
AIDS and a host of minor ailments, including sore eyes, gnawing pain,
toothache, dysentery and hangovers.
Dr Charlie Xue, head of the
Chinese Medicine Unit at
Melbourne's RMIT, says
bear gall bladders have
been used for hundreds of
years, but in powdered
form. It was prescribed to
counteract inflammation and
infection, convulsions and
ulcers. He knows of no
evidence of it as a cure for
cancer or other serious
illness.
Bears in China were
traditionally hunted in late summer and early autumn and the gall bladder was
removed, dried in the sun and reduced to powder, he says. Liquid bile was
never prescribed or extracted.
Yet to feed this obsession, black bears are kept in caged torment in restaurants
and in the backyards of homes, mainly in Hanoi. There is no animal welfare
agency in Vietnam.
The only group actively working to help the bears is the international Animals
Asia Foundation, which is based in Hong Kong and headed by a British
woman, Jill Robinson, who has worked to rescue bears in China since 1993.
Its Vietnam representative and the only Australian officially involved is Lyn
White, an Adelaide policewoman who took leave of absence to help the bears
and has just resigned to work full-time with Animals Asia.
She spent part of last year in Vietnam trying to persuade the government to
enforce the laws to protect the bears and allow the group to repatriate those in
cages. White and Robinson will return next month for a further meeting with the
government.
Her devotion began with an article featuring a picture of a bear in a cage. "It
was just one of those life-changing moments," White says. "You looked at it
and you couldn't possibly believ e such cruelty could be happening."
The group rarely seeks publicity, preferring to work quietly with local
government agencies to bring about change. Two years ago they appeared to
have a breakthrough when the group was told legislation to stop the bile
extraction was two weeks away. "It never happened and the numbers have
gone from 200 bears to well over 1000 in Hanoi alone, where bears are being
kept in private premises to have their bile extracted," she says.
The group says it does not want to alienate the Vietnamese Government, but it
has reached a bureaucratic stalemate while the suffering goes on. Media
reports suggest a possible reason for the inaction: that government officials are
involved in the trade.
Sunday in Hanoi is bile collection day and for cultural reasons the extraction of
the fluid from the bear's gall bladder attracts a crowd. Restaurants openly tout
for bookings to watch bear bile extractions, despite its illegality.
Visitors to Vietnam are increasingly being exposed to this and White says her
organisation has had calls from travellers distressed by what they have seen.
To extract the bile, the bear is felled with a dart or jabstick injection that
anaesthetises it. A seven-centimetre spinal needle pierces the gall bladder and a
medicinal or hand-held pump sucks the brilliant green bile from the bear's
stomach. This operation is performed on each bear every three months. After
each extraction more bile leaks into its stomach, causing infected peritonitis.
In China, bears were found with steel tubes inserted into their abdomens for
easier subsequent extractions. Other bears had to be operated on to have
catheters removed. Many died.
"I saw very sick bears in Vietnam last time with distended abdomens who were
obviously in terrible pain," White says. "It is difficult to know how long they
survive; they say about three years."
White does not blame the Vietnamese poachers who hunt bears for survival.
They are probably paid in rice or other necessities, she says. It is the
middleman who is paid $US3000 ($A5900) for supplying a bear and the illegal
operator who then makes at least $US10,000 (A$19,700) a year from bile
extraction that disturbs her because their role is built on cruelty and
exploitation.
"Whether they are the last bear or the last tiger in Vietnam is really not
important to these illegal operators," she says. "And when it comes to the
buyers, they are being told that if you have this, you won't get cancer."
By Penelope Debelle - The Age (Australia) - November 10, 2001.
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