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California battles lucrative bear bile trade
"Crush cages" with brackets force the bear's body down so it cannot move while its bile is being extracted from its belly which is spiked with crude, dirty, often-infected devices to allow the farmers to "milk" their bile twice a day and sell the fluid secreted by the liver.
California battles lucrative bear bile trade
Teresa Castle
Monday, April 25, 2005
The world's appetite for bear bile and bear parts extends to the Bay Area and has even led to the hunting and killing of California's wild bears, state officials and animal rights activists say.
Lt. Kathy Ponting, field supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Game's undercover Special Operations unit, says game wardens regularly find black bear carcasses in the wild with only their gall bladders and paws cut away.
When WildAid, an animal rights group based in San Francisco, sent an undercover investigator into Chinatown last year, two shopkeepers readily offered up vials in velvet-lined boxes with a picture of a bear on the lid, claiming the powdered bear bile was from farms in China, said Executive Director Peter Knights.
One reason wild bear parts are prized is that some adherents of traditional Chinese medicine believe that by eating animal parts, they will take on the characteristics of the animal. Yet because California law bans the sale or purchase of bear parts -- with penalties ranging up to a $10,000 fine and three years in state prison -- the trade is clandestine and it is impossible to gauge the full extent of the problem.
But in 2001, when the World Society for the Protection of Animals conducted a probe of traditional Chinese medicine shops in Canada and four U.S. cities -- Chicago, New York, Washington and San Francisco -- it found that 91 percent of the shops surveyed sold some form of bear part, including farmed bile powder, bile medicines and whole gall bladders.
In San Francisco, bile crystal sold for $50 a bottle, the survey found, and whole gall bladders, which the merchants claimed to be from wild bears in China, sold for $129.
The Humane Society of the United States says smugglers have been caught with bears' gall bladders dipped in chocolate, in an attempt to disguise them as chocolate-covered figs, and packed in coffee to conceal the smell.
Knights said demand for the once-rare product remains high, which has led to more bears being killed in the wild. "People don't want to be like a bear in a cage, they want to be like a wild bear," Knights said.
Some users of Chinese medicines argue that Westerners have no right to criticize their centuries-old cultural traditions. But Anthony Marr, a Chinese Canadian animal welfare advocate, argues that "all traditions, sooner or later, have to give way to new advances, and for this practice, its time has come."
Another reason that wild bear parts are in demand is that consumers grew wary of prepackaged bear products after the state's Department of Fish and Game revealed that some "bear" products netted in sting operations were really from pigs and cows. Poachers sometimes go to great lengths to prove their bear parts are real, even videotaping the kills in some cases, Knights said.
In the mid-1990s, the Department of Fish and Game aggressively pursued bear poachers and held meetings with experts on the trade in bear parts. A yearlong sting operation in Kern and Tulare counties dubbed Ursus III netted 11 suspects in 2003.
Sting operations have helped tamp down the trade in certain areas, Ponting said, but she added: "We would be naive to feel we have it in check.''
State efforts were curtailed under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when the Special Operations unit was cut from 10 wardens to six. It is only now gradually building back up, Ponting said.
"I wish we had the resources to do more," she said. "We're just spread so thin. We've got a lot of species to protect."
Tracing poachers is complicated by the fact that there is no uniform federal law banning the trade in bear parts, so poachers can transport their contraband from California to one of the eight states where the parts can be bought and sold legally. A number of bills have been introduced to put a federal ban in place, including bills by Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., but so far they have stalled in Congress.
Ponting said she believes the major market for poached black bear parts is in California, with its large Asian population: "The supply and the demand are right here."
Miles Young, a former supervisor for undercover Fish and Game operations, suspects that many California bear parts are making their way to Asia. "Galls are worth a lot more going to Asia," said Young, who retired from the department in December 2003.
The trade can be lucrative, he said, especially for international smugglers. During one sting operation, he sent an Asian woman to buy gall bladders from poachers in Northern California. She was able to buy 35 in one day, paying $35 to $40 for them, he said. Agents then resold them to a Bay Area merchant for $300 to $400.
"You can add another zero to that to get the price in Korea," Young said.
Knights, from WildAid, says efforts to crack down on poachers are worthwhile.
"If you bust somebody and publicize it, the aftershocks can last for years."
But his organization is taking another tack, attempting to make the trade in animal parts unfashionable and to persuade consumers to use alternatives, like synthetic bile and herbal remedies.
The group has filmed television spots featuring Asian and international celebrities such as martial arts actor Jackie Chan, director Ang Lee and actress Michelle Yeoh. The spots have been broadcast to an audience of more than a million people a week, mainly in Asia.
Their tag line: "When the buying stops, the killing can too."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/25/MNG9ACEIJF1.DTL
Teresa Castle
Monday, April 25, 2005
The world's appetite for bear bile and bear parts extends to the Bay Area and has even led to the hunting and killing of California's wild bears, state officials and animal rights activists say.
Lt. Kathy Ponting, field supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Game's undercover Special Operations unit, says game wardens regularly find black bear carcasses in the wild with only their gall bladders and paws cut away.
When WildAid, an animal rights group based in San Francisco, sent an undercover investigator into Chinatown last year, two shopkeepers readily offered up vials in velvet-lined boxes with a picture of a bear on the lid, claiming the powdered bear bile was from farms in China, said Executive Director Peter Knights.
One reason wild bear parts are prized is that some adherents of traditional Chinese medicine believe that by eating animal parts, they will take on the characteristics of the animal. Yet because California law bans the sale or purchase of bear parts -- with penalties ranging up to a $10,000 fine and three years in state prison -- the trade is clandestine and it is impossible to gauge the full extent of the problem.
But in 2001, when the World Society for the Protection of Animals conducted a probe of traditional Chinese medicine shops in Canada and four U.S. cities -- Chicago, New York, Washington and San Francisco -- it found that 91 percent of the shops surveyed sold some form of bear part, including farmed bile powder, bile medicines and whole gall bladders.
In San Francisco, bile crystal sold for $50 a bottle, the survey found, and whole gall bladders, which the merchants claimed to be from wild bears in China, sold for $129.
The Humane Society of the United States says smugglers have been caught with bears' gall bladders dipped in chocolate, in an attempt to disguise them as chocolate-covered figs, and packed in coffee to conceal the smell.
Knights said demand for the once-rare product remains high, which has led to more bears being killed in the wild. "People don't want to be like a bear in a cage, they want to be like a wild bear," Knights said.
Some users of Chinese medicines argue that Westerners have no right to criticize their centuries-old cultural traditions. But Anthony Marr, a Chinese Canadian animal welfare advocate, argues that "all traditions, sooner or later, have to give way to new advances, and for this practice, its time has come."
Another reason that wild bear parts are in demand is that consumers grew wary of prepackaged bear products after the state's Department of Fish and Game revealed that some "bear" products netted in sting operations were really from pigs and cows. Poachers sometimes go to great lengths to prove their bear parts are real, even videotaping the kills in some cases, Knights said.
In the mid-1990s, the Department of Fish and Game aggressively pursued bear poachers and held meetings with experts on the trade in bear parts. A yearlong sting operation in Kern and Tulare counties dubbed Ursus III netted 11 suspects in 2003.
Sting operations have helped tamp down the trade in certain areas, Ponting said, but she added: "We would be naive to feel we have it in check.''
State efforts were curtailed under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when the Special Operations unit was cut from 10 wardens to six. It is only now gradually building back up, Ponting said.
"I wish we had the resources to do more," she said. "We're just spread so thin. We've got a lot of species to protect."
Tracing poachers is complicated by the fact that there is no uniform federal law banning the trade in bear parts, so poachers can transport their contraband from California to one of the eight states where the parts can be bought and sold legally. A number of bills have been introduced to put a federal ban in place, including bills by Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., but so far they have stalled in Congress.
Ponting said she believes the major market for poached black bear parts is in California, with its large Asian population: "The supply and the demand are right here."
Miles Young, a former supervisor for undercover Fish and Game operations, suspects that many California bear parts are making their way to Asia. "Galls are worth a lot more going to Asia," said Young, who retired from the department in December 2003.
The trade can be lucrative, he said, especially for international smugglers. During one sting operation, he sent an Asian woman to buy gall bladders from poachers in Northern California. She was able to buy 35 in one day, paying $35 to $40 for them, he said. Agents then resold them to a Bay Area merchant for $300 to $400.
"You can add another zero to that to get the price in Korea," Young said.
Knights, from WildAid, says efforts to crack down on poachers are worthwhile.
"If you bust somebody and publicize it, the aftershocks can last for years."
But his organization is taking another tack, attempting to make the trade in animal parts unfashionable and to persuade consumers to use alternatives, like synthetic bile and herbal remedies.
The group has filmed television spots featuring Asian and international celebrities such as martial arts actor Jackie Chan, director Ang Lee and actress Michelle Yeoh. The spots have been broadcast to an audience of more than a million people a week, mainly in Asia.
Their tag line: "When the buying stops, the killing can too."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/25/MNG9ACEIJF1.DTL
For more information:
http://www.AnimalsAsia.org
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