Healing Our World: Such Intense Cruelty

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Such Intense Cruelty

The darkness is so great
Will I ever see the light
The pain is so intense ...
Will I ever see the light
How can some be so cruel
Is there any light?
-- Jackie Giuliano

For thousands of years, parts of animals have been used in Eastern medicine, especially the medicine of East Asia. Possibly no single animal has suffered more than the bear, whose body parts are used for many remedies for conditions ranging from cancer and burns to pain.

The part of the bear that is considered most valuable by practitioners is the bile within the gall bladder. The Asian demand for this substance is affecting bears all around the world in all their habitats, but the demand centers in East Asia where a horrific practice takes place.

Hideous torture for this bear (Two photos courtesy Fauna Free)

But few activists realize that in China today, thousands of bears are kept alive in the most horrifying conditions imaginable so that the bile from their gall bladders can be harvested!

I have seen many unconscionable animal abuses in my career, but never have I encountered as brutal and malignant practice as this.

There is Western medical evidence that the acid found in bear gall bladder bile, tauro ursodeoxycholic (UDCA), has curative powers. However, a synthetic form of this acid has been made for years from cow bile. It is used to dissolve gallstones and has also shown promise in treating a fatal form of cirrhosis of the liver.

China, Japan and South Korea consume nearly 100 tons of synthesized UDCA every year. This amounts to well over half the world's annual consumption.

But many Asian medicine practitioners demand gall bladder bile from the animals, even though there are 54 known herbal alternatives. An ounce of this material sells for more than the most expensive drugs on the planet.

But there can be no justification for the pain and terror that is inflicted upon over 7,300 bears imprisoned on 481 bile farms across China, where these animals are imprisoned on their backs in small wooden cages and bile is drained from surgically implanted catheters.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an international agreement that protects many animal species. Four of the five species of bears in China are specifically protected and products from them are banned for international trade. Even in China, the law says that it is illegal to sell gall bladders from wild bears.

So the Chinese have come up with a clever way to dodge the law - create farms where non-wild bears are tortured for five to 10 years. Over 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds) of bear gall bladder bile is harvested from these farms each year. This bile is for sale all over China and was even found being sold in the duty free area of Beijing International Airport.

Imprisoned bears at a bile farm (Photo courtesy International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Our society expends a great deal of effort to teach us how to ignore the suffering of others. Huge industries exist for the sole purpose of maintaining an illusion that we are happy or on the verge of becoming happy if we buy this car or that cosmetic.

None of us can be free of sorrow for our world. None of us can sustain the energy it takes to look away from the sights and sounds of our Earth and her people and her animals crying.

Czech writer Franz Kafka said, "You can hold yourself back from the suffering of the world: this is something you are free to do ... but perhaps this ... holding back is the only suffering you might be able to avoid."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

We all must choose. Which do you choose?

RESOURCES

1. Read about the horrifying market in bear gall bladders and learn what you can do from the International Fund for Animal Welfare at http://www.ifaw.org/moonbearfacts.html

2. The World Wildlife Fund has a report on the issue at http://www.traffic.org/publications/summaries/summary-bear.html

3. Another World Wildlife Fund report detailing the plight of bears can be found at http://www.livingplanet.org/resources/publications/species/bears/index2.html

4. Read a report on this sick industry by the Humane Society of the United States at http://www.animalalliance.ca/bac/pharmacy.htm

5. A Brazilian organization called Fauna Free will help you understand who to write to demanding a stop to this practice at http://www.geocities.com/Baja/2324/english.htm

6. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Demand that they hold China accountable for this unspeakable cruelty. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html

[Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and the Manager of Discovery Park for the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. He can be found in his new home in Seattle, praying for this cruelty to end. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at www.healingourworld.com]