Sharing the planet with humans has been bad for bears. Admittedly, that could be said of most other creatures, apart from bacteria. But bears had a particularly hard time because they looked like men – or so early men thought.

The cruelties meted out to real, as opposed to stuffed bears, notably in Thailand, Vietnam and China, where they are kept in tiny cages and “milked” for their spleen through a tube inserted into their gall bladder. According to Chinese government statistics, by 2005 there was at least 400 bear farms in China, where over 7,000 black bears were "farmed" for bile extraction.

China must now commit to closing down these bear farms (most of them are illegal) still in operation.

There isn't a labeling system or surgical technology around that can make up for what an animal is put through on a bear farm.

Confined to tiny cages their entire lives, the catheters used to draw out bile are usually implanted by farmers with no veterinary training.

Many bears die soon after this operation. Those who survive are "milked" twice a day for bile -- an excruciating procedure that causes the bears to moan and bang their head against the cage or chew their paws.

The conditions in these farms are so filthy that many bears' wounds are infected and their catheters are rusty. Although a normal bear's lifespan is 30 years, bears milked in farms stop producing bile after 5 or 10 years.

They are then left in their cages to die of sickness or starvation or killed to sell their gall bladder and paws which are eaten as a delicacy.

Ultimately, all of us can help put an end to these bear farms by boycotting products containing bear bile, and writing to government officials and asking them to stop this barbaric practice.

Source: Chinapost (PETA)

A video about the Bear Bile Business in China:

Stories of the Bears:

For most of human history, Bernd Brunner points out in this engrossing study of ursine lore, the great apes were unknown in the northern hemisphere, so bears were the only animals, apart from men, that walked upright.

This, together with their great strength, meant that they aroused a special mixture of fear, affection and reverence. They were given human names such as “grandfather” or “little uncle”, and hunting them had a unique, sacred importance.

Among some north American Indians it was usual to apologize to a bear after killing it, or assure it that some other hunter was responsible, to prevent its spirit seeking revenge. In eastern Siberia, bears were led from house to house and treated like guests, then slaughtered.

The Inuits surrounded polar bears with a complicated system of taboos and rituals. Ainu women, on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, kept bear cubs as pets and suckled them. It seems clear that if Darwin had proposed that we were descended from bears rather than monkeys his theory would have had an altogether more enthusiastic reception.

The mating season lasts about two weeks, and they spend the rest of their lives alone. The bear roars when angry, emits a “modulated humming sound” when licking its paws, and the females pop their lips in the mating season to indicate sexual longing. Apart from that, their language remains mysterious.

One of the golden rule with grizzlies is to avoid taking them by surprise, which sounds excellent advice, though hard to follow.
Should you disturb one by mistake, “resisting the impulse to flee is vital”. If it stands in front of you and roars, Brunner recommends lying down and keeping absolutely still. Praying that it is not hungry might also help.

By AD1000 they were extinct in Britain, and in Germany and Switzerland by the end of the 19th century. The introduction of repeating rifles meant that many of America’s thriving bear populations (in Texas, California, Utah and Arizona) had been wiped out by the 1930s.

The wisest policy for bears is to stay undiscovered. Pandas were unheard of in the West until 1869, when a French missionary saw a panda pelt in Beijing. European hunters rapidly converged on central Sichuan, and a dead panda became a coveted trophy.

President Theodore Roosevelt’s two sons mounted their own expedition and found a sleepy old male panda sauntering among bamboos, which they promptly blasted into oblivion. A gentle creature, it uttered no sound, even when shot. It was put on show, stuffed, in the Chicago Museum of Natural History...

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