China is well known for it's cruel tactics to obtain body parts and fluids from animals for it's psuedo medicinal purposes. Aside from the horrors of poaching and farming these animals in order to do this, many of them are already extremely indangered. In the case of bear bile farming, the Moon bears used are kept in tiny, cramped cages where a permanantly implanted tube is inserted into their liver. The area where the tube enters often becomes infected. Currently there are 68 licensed bear farms in China. Many Chinese believe that bear bile can cure liver and eye ailments, remove toxins and eliminate fevers.

China however is slowly starting to awaken from these long used, torture inducing customs against innocent animals. Just recently in China, dozens of drug stores have stopped selling bear bile products after a company accused of torturing bears to extract bile became the center of a storm of criticism over a shares issue plan. Animal welfare groups and members of the public have been protesting against the shares issue plan by Fujian Province-based Guizhentang Pharmaceutical Development Co Ltd. Currently it keeps 470 bears to extract bile for traditional Chinese medicine. The issue at stake is that the company plans to use cash raised from selling shares to expand the size of its farm and increase the number of bears to 1,200.

In trying to defend the company's actions of bear bile extracting and the need to add more bears, the company's founder, Qiu Shuhua, said the method used to extract bile was legal and replaced one where bears had to be killed. The company's website says it can collect bile in five to eight minutes "without causing the bears pain." In response to back this up, The China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine defended the company last week, comparing bile extraction to "turning on a tap."

The Animals Asia Foundation vehemently disagrees and said bile extraction, which involves inserting a catheter into a bear's abdomen, causes great suffering. Also recently former NBA star Yao Ming visited a center in Sichuan Province which has 277 moon bears rescued from bear bile farms to call on the public to protect the animals. This practice is horrendous and the rest of the world does not buy into China's false claims of this being a noncruel and normal procedure against innocent bears who spend their entire lives enduring this. Please take a moment and sign the petitions below to let Chinese officials know that you strongly oppose this.