Injured bears rescued from bile farms in China

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

CHENGDU, China (AP) — A dozen Asiatic black bears, malnourished and diseased from years spent on abusive bile-harvesting farms in southwest China, were recovering Saturday after being handed over to an animal charity group.

The Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation took in the bears from state-approved farms in Sichuan province where holes were cut in their abdomens so that their bile could drip out to be harvested and used in Chinese traditional medicine.

Such bear farming is legal in China but the bears came from farms that violated regulations by mistreating the animals, the group says. Thirteen bears were handed over by the Sichuan Forestry Protection Department Friday but one was put to death because it was so ill, apparently from late-stage liver cancer.

China started allowing bear bile farming in the 1980s, saying it would protect wild Asiatic black bears by satisfying the market for bile with farmed products, according to Animals Asia. But the lack of reliable population data on black bears makes it difficult to evaluate whether it has been successful, the group said.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jy3G35JFA1rR0zuXcpumgwvLKdaAD966MKTG0

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I have bile in the back of my throat after reading this story.

:mad:

"Chinese Traditional Medicine" strikes again!

[Mike 03]

1. I agree this is hideous, but it's not just China. Don't we make premarin from horses and

heparin from pigs?

And don't a lot of our vaccines come from growing antibodies on bird eggs?

[Coventina]

2. I never meant to imply that our hands are clean, far from it.

We (as a society) engage in practices just as bad or worse.

The thing I find infuriating about "Traditional Chinese Medicine" is that the 'cures' are based on magic and superstition. And most of the ingredients seem to be based on endangered species!

I know a cow suffers just as much as a bear, but one could think, "well, at least people are getting a tangible BENEFIT from the suffering," and cows aren't an endangered species.

I suppose cows would become an endangered species if everyone became a vegetarian, but that's the kind of problem I'd love to face (since I don't eat cows).

[Mike 03]

3. I'm with you on this issue, believe me.

I can't stand to see animals mistreated.

I don't like testing on animals unless there is an extremely good reason.

I refuse to buy products from companies that do test on animals.

But as you say, and it's true, some benefit does come from experimentation on animals. I didn't believe this until fairly recently, but it is true.

ON EDIT:

Other horrible and ridiculous episodes regarding animals involve the butchering of turtles and rhinoceri for "sexual potency." It is amazing what some people think is medicine.

[3waygeek]

7. I don't know about heparin,

but premarin was (and still may be for all I know) made from the urine of mares, so the horses aren't killed for it.

[Runcible Spoon]

8. ummm, tell that to the baby horses that are slaughtered once the mare gives birth

PREgnantMAReurIN.

[bitchkitty]

13. They are kept in small pens,

and their babies are taken from them at birth and slaughtered. They are kept pregnant by artificial insemination for all of their miserable lives.

[roody]

14. They are mistreated and their babies are taken away.

[DUlover2909]

9. Premarin comes from pregnant horses' urine.

[jmowreader]

10. We make Premarin from horse PISS!

Premarin stands for PREgnant MARes urINe.

Heparin comes from pigs, but they slaughter them first...unlike the procedure for collecting bear bile, which is most inhumane.

[The Stranger]

12. One thing at at time. Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good and essential.

This shit has got to fucking stop.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

4. Is that where the Republicans buy their bile--they seem to never be short of it n/t

[EFerrari]

5. I hate people sometimes.

[Robb]

6. Do fistulated cows feel pain from their holes?

I've often wondered this. And now that question has relevance. :shrug:

[illuminaughty]

11. I saw a docu on this years ago and it has never left my mind

Nightmarish practices. Everything that's on the food chain is slaughtered in some fashion, but this is keeping a creature alive to live a torturous existence. Does anything in the animal world do this, or is it just us sophisticated humans?

[ConcernedCanuk]

15. Shooting or trapping an animal for necessary food and clothing/shelter is one thing

.
.
.


Keeping them enslaved for our so-called "higher needs" is another

keeping them in a normal environment - or sorta normal, until we "harvest" them - that I can live with

Putting tubes in them, keeping them immobile - is wrong

Just my opinion . .