Bear bile farming is a cruel farming system designed to extract bile from the gallbladders of living bears for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Bile bears also called battery bears are bears held in captive to harvest their biles.
Bear-bile farming has been widely condemned for being inhumane. The bears are often kept in cages so small they cannot turn around or stand up. Asiatic black bears, also called moon bears, are the most common species of bear farmed for their bile in Southeast Asia.
Today, across South Korea, 360 bears remain on farms, compared to 1,400 in the mid-2000s when the industry was at its peak. Some mammals in captivity in zoos in Asia also suffer with injury and disease. Many wild animals in captivity even self-harm due to the frustration and boredom of constant confinement. Most receive no medical care and are left to suffer alone.
Most farmed bears are kept permanently in cages, sometimes so small that they are unable to turn around or stand on all fours. Some bears are caged as cubs and never released, with many kept caged for up to 30 years.
Most farmed bears are starved and dehydrated, and suffer from multiple diseases that ultimately kill them. The surgery is crude and unhygienic. In most situations bears do not survive and those who do suffer for the rest of their lives in agony
Sign this petition to ban bear bile farming in china : https://www.change.org/p/chinese-government-get-bear-bile-farming-banned-in-china
sources :
National Geographic
Animal Asia
World Wildlife Protection