Basic HTML Version
timeout
9
their heath,” Tuan said.
According to Tuan, a lot of bear
farms in Vietnam are raising their bears
like pigs, with a mixture of food, where-
as in the wild they eat only green leaves
and vegetables.
Bear bile is extracted with the aid
of a catheter and medicinal pump. They
are drugged with ketamine, an illegal
general anesthetic and tranquiliser,
restrained with ropes and repeatedly
jabbed in the abdomen with four-inch
needles until the gall bladder is found.
Experts from Animals Asia believe that
the process leads to the leakage of bile
into the body and a slow and agonising
death from peritonitis.
Bear bile use
Bear bile is used in Asian medicine
to treat inflammation, though its use
has always been minimal with herbal
alternatives used far more frequently.
In Vietnam, bear bile is sold fresh in
liquid form. Since it is illegal to sell bear
bile, there is no standard price. How-
ever, according to Animals Asia, bile is
traded from $0.5 to $30 per millimetre.
In a concentrated bear farming
area in Ha Tay, Hanoi, locals pay around
$1-$2 per millimetre. In Halong Bay, the
price is around $6 per millilitre. Tourists
from Asian countries, especially from
Korea, often visit farms during their trip
to Halong.
In 2005, after much effort from
Animals Asia as well as other interna-
tional and local NGOs, the Vietnamese
authorities promised to act to phase out
bear bile farming. In November 2005
the organisation signed an agreement
with the government to build a sanctu-
ary and rescue 200 bears.
Returning to nature
Animals Asia’s Vietnam Moon Bear
Rescue Centre covers 12 hectares of
land in Tam Dao National Park in Vinh
Phuc province, 70 kilometres from Ha-
noi. This centre has taken in more than
100 bears rescued from the bile indus-
try since it opened in 2008.
The bears are rehabilitated and live
out their lives in semi-natural enclosures
and dens. Up to now, the sanctuary has
built a quarantine area and hospital, a
bear kitchen, four semi-natural enclo-
sures, an education centre, a herb gar-
den, plus two waste treatment systems.
The bears brought to the centre
receive medical care, starting with an
initial health-check to determine the
extent of their injuries. Some of them
need surgery to remove their damaged
gall bladders and to treat a myriad of
other ailments. They spend at least 45
days in quarantine cages, where their
health is carefully monitored.
Once they get the all-clear from
the vet team, the process of integra-
tion begins, with the bears moved into
dens and given controlled access to
other bears. Finally, they will be ready
for release into one of the semi-natural
enclosures. Tuan’s long-term target is to
release bears into the forest.
He says introducing people to the
truth about the bile industry is a pivotal
part of Animals Asia’s target to protect
them. The organisation has built an
education centre to supply information
relating to bears. It also built a herb gar-
den that grows many of the alternatives
to bear bile, showing visitors that no
one need die for the lack of bile.
Moreover, its hospital and vet team
is working with pathologists and tradi-
tional medicine practitioners to collect
growing evidence that consuming bear
bile is dangerous to human health.
Raising awareness
Visitors to Vietnam are told that
buying bears’ bile is illegal and that they
could be fined.
Animals Asia is carrying out a huge
awareness-raising programme aimed at
the tourism sector in Quang Ninh prov-
ince. Tourists and tourism workers have
been told that violations of bear protec-
tion laws mean fines of over $20,000 or
up to seven years in prison.
It is believed there are 27 bear
farms with nearly 250 bears in Quang
Ninh province alone.
SOCIETY AT LARGE