Battery bears are Asian black bears that are kept in captivity in Vietnam and China and from which, the locals harvest bile from. Bile, a juice produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder, is extremely valuable for sale as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.

The bears are kept in small cages, where they cannot stand upright or move around, allowing easier access to their abdomens, from where the bile is extracted. This results in mental stress and the bears start banging their heads against the cages, chewing their own paws, losing hair, getting wounds, becoming malnourished, and losing muscle mass . Sometimes, the bears even havetheir teeth and claws extracted/removed to make it safer for the people working with them.

When the bears stop producing bile they are often killed for their fur, paws, meet and gall bladders. Bear paws are also seen as a delicacy and are priced around 250 dollars apiece.

Extraction methods
A bile bear is often ‘milked’ twice a day, producing between 10-20ml of bile each time. The bile is often extracted through an implanted tube and can be a very painful process for the bear. Other methods involve pushing a hollow steel stick through the bear’s abdomen. Some people also use a free drip method, where a permanent hole is made in the bear’s abdomen and then the bile can drip out freely. This method has been seen as more humane by the Chinese government, but the hole/wound is very vulnerable to infection and sometimes the hole is kept open with a Perspex catheter which causes severe pain or even death for the bear.

The Future of the bears
In July 2000, the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) signed an agreement with the Chinese government to remove 500 bears from the worst bile farms and to work towards abolishing the industry. Some of the rescued bears were not able to stand or walk without extensive therapy and a lot of them had to be put to sleep because their injuries were so severe.
But the Chinese government’s excuse for allowing this industry to continue is that it  says it 10.000wild bears would have to be killed each year to produce the same amount as the  7.600 captive bears produce (this is the Chinese government’s estimate of captive bears, other official statistics say there are over 12.000 captive bears used for bile extraction). Inn other words, a captive bile bear produces the same amount each year as 220 wild bears do (though this has not been supported by any independent science). But signing this agreement with the AAS is at least a beginning to understanding that this industry cannot continue.

In January 2006, the Chinese State Council Information office held a press conference in Beijing, where the government stated that it would enforce a  ‘technical code of practice for raising black bears’ and this code would require; hygienic, painless practice for gall extraction and making strict regulations on the techniques and conditions for nursing, exercise and propagation. 
But already in 2007, a report by the AAF stated that the technical code was not being enforced and that many bears were still spending their whole lives in extraction cages with only the minimum amount of food and water required to stay alive.

Is there anything to do?
Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) which is believed to protect the liver, improve eyesight, reduce fever, cure heat diseases and act as an anti-inflammatory. But a lot/a great deal of medical practioners  now often claim that its effectiveness has been overrated.

Bear bile is not always needed to make traditional Chinese medicine or other products. Many herbs, such as coptis or rhubarb, can be used as alternatives for bear bile *according to who?. And in the West, synthetic UDCA is already being produced as an alternative. These substitutes for bear bile should be studied more fully and actively promoted.

Measures should be taken to improve the enforcement of import/export controls in consumer and producer countries. The East Asian police should aggressively capture illegal shipments before they even find their way to consumers. Where legal trade is allowed, governments should make more extensive efforts to make consumers and traders aware of what constitutes legal versus illegal trade. The Chinese also need to put more resources into enforcing the laws and prosecuting those who violate the laws.

Even though bear farms were taught to protect the wild bears from over hunting it has proven to have the opposite effect, as bear farming has stimulated the demand for bear bile and therefore lowered the price, which in the end means worse conditions for the bear. And wild bears are still an illegal source of supplying bear farms, but the Chinese government continues to say that bear farms don’t threaten wild bear populations and that there are plenty of wild bears.

On a regional scale, further research must be carried out to gain a deeper understanding of the bear gall bladder and bile market. Such initiatives should include trade and economic studies of the nature of global demand and market dynamics and sociological surveys to document the demographics and attitudes of users.
A good idea would also be to offer education and awareness to the public about this topic. It can be difficult to make people stop the production of bear bile, as they may not have other alternatives. It is their income and they rely on it to live, maybe the government should help find other alternatives for these people.  

Ethics

All these bears are suffering just so that humans can get medicine and that the humans can get better, it cannot be right that human can just treat animals as a means to an end! So many animals suffer on the behalf of humans, not only the bears but animals all over the world and humans should feel appalled for allowing this treatment towards defenceless animals. This should in no way be seen as ethical and should be stopped, there are clear indicators that there are other substities that can heal the same things as bear bile can and therefore humans should focus more on those substities and stop using bear bile!