Are bears purposely committing suicide to protest the horror of bile farms?
Bears held captive in bile farms often go on hunger strikes, their only means of escape from the conditions.
BILE BEAR: Bears are typically kept in cages so confining that they're sometimes forced to lie on their backs, unable to roll over or stand up. (Photo: Zuma Press)
Comments
If everyone on here who commented on how sorry they felt for these bears took 2 mins to stick £10 in animals asias charity tin they might actually make a real difference to some of these bears. Animals asia is fighting hard to end this and help these broken bears slowly come back to life, if you go on their website you can even buy a pot of hunny or basket of fruit for a bear rescued from a bile farm. If you really care, send some money to help, otherwise this is all just talk, and does.... More
Poor things!! They need to stop this kind of stuff seriously who does this benefit? ( I know people try to make money off of this but there is no real benefit )
My pen fails to describe how sad I am to read these horrible lines of bear slaughter for human medicines. This is going on for quite some years now. In fact I am seething in anger against those guys who are doing this and those who have to depend on these medicines for whatever they require for good health.
This is just terribly horrifying!!! Barbaric deeds like this have to be put to an end...We cant exploit animals in this manner to satisfy our needs! Just hope Ng's rehabilitation centre comes up soon....this is insane!
we can't let this keep happing!! its not just this but all animal abuse!!
that is the most horrific story no animal should ever endure pain&suffering there is no excuse in world for that and needs to be stopped these people need to feel what these animals do put in cage cant move needles & pain eveyday send me i will stop it!!
If I was one of those bears I would want to die as well rather than exist under those conditions. I live freely as a human being and have a hard enough time with the way things are. I can not even imagine being one of those bears.
In the name of Chinese traditional medicine they have brought many species to brink of extinction or altogether extinction - tiger, rhino and so on. So those humans who consume this Chinese traditional medicine are to blame to keep it in demand. Can't they find other means to heal themselves than this torture. If Buddhism talks about karma and rebirth probably they should worry about that. I wonder how the people are strong and healthy in other parts of the world without consuming these cruelly.... More
Do more than *****...
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-stop-the-barbaric-medical-torture-o...
What can we do to HELP??? How can we rescue these bears-SOMEONE has to DO SOMETHING. Please tell us how we can help- REAL help.
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-stop-the-barbaric-medical-torture-o...
No living creature deserves to suffer this agony. I hope everyone reading this article TAKES ACTION by signing PETITIONS to END THIS CRUEL PRACTICE FOREVER.
http://www.petitiononline.com/bears/petition.html .... More
Gui Zhen Tang Pharmaceutical Corporation (Bear Bile Farmers) want to be included in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Tell them NO!
"Scientists warn of anthropomorphizing animal behavior". Perhaps we should also be warned against anthropomorphizing scientists...
I agree we should treat all creatures great and small as equal life forms but by thinking of them as having human behavior we forget that it is a bear and that it is a bear behavior. (Sadly many scientist see animals as interesting test subjects that don't mind dying to formulate new kinds of make up or food dyes.) I am not saying a bear is less complicated or less wise I just mean they are different. Ex. eye contact in humans may be a sign of respect but with some other beasts it is.... More
So what can we do about this?! It has to be stopped. We need to start a petition.
I found a few: http://www.petitiononline.com/bears/petition.html
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/236/430/715/
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?UID=8JG7KMRRVLV
Share on FB & Twitter if you can as well. We must end this
http://www.change.org/petitions/help-stop-the-barbaric-medical-torture-o...
Its doubtful this is willful suicide but rather an overwhelming lack of a desire to live. Who can blame them? I wish we could close these horror holes down.
Those who compare this with US "food animal" operations are not taking into consideration that we use assembly lines and kill more than 95 BILLION animals each and every day. These wretched bile operations pale by comparison.
If you don't want to support this mind-numbing cruelty, don't eat dead animals.
Pale in comparison? Do you realize you are comparing torture with death? The point of this article is that the animals would choose death to the treatment they recieve. Would you rather be tortured and mutilated every day of your life than die? I don't think so.
But do you also not realize that we are torturing the animals we eat? We keep them locked up and feed them things they are not meant to eat just so they fatten up. Some chickens can't even walk because we've caused them to grow and fatten up that they can't uphold their own weight and then they keep up locked up in the dark where they can barely walk. Then for veal, they beat the calves to death so that when they die, they don't stiffen up and cause the meat to toughen up. America and big.... More
This is absolutely tragic. Bears are very intelligent animals and deserve a lot better than this. -Igor Purlantov
Why is intelligence a prerequisite for having the right not to suffer? Do you disregard a mentally disabled person's ability to suffer because they can't do maths?
The bear bile industry is all in all no more horrible than dairy farms, chicken farms, and lab experimentation that we do in the west and not many people judge.
It's easy to point and say how horrible the asians are with animals, but watch Earthlings and you'll see worse things happening here in the west. .... More
Bile farming is horrible, there is no question about that. But, some of you do have a point when it comes to animal cruelty and needing only to look in your own back yard. Do any of you use allopathic medicine(a.k.a. Western Medicine)? Guess what; it's all ill-gotten knowledge. How do you think they test all of the new cancer treatments(or any other treatment for that matter)? By giving animals cancer; then seeing if they can cure it. We do the same crap here. The only difference is that it's.... More
While this practice is deplorable and inhuman the anthropomorphizing tone of the article doesn't help, these are wild animals who aren't eating because they're sick and in pain.
They're not going on "hunger strikes" or intentionally committing suicide, just dying off because of neglect.
These farms need to be shut down immediately, the owners and staff imprisoned for their crimes and the bears rehabilitated into the wild if possible.
Most of all China needs to ban all.... More
Animals Asia (http://www.animalsasia.org/) has been doing great work in this area for years. It's an amazing organization, which has created sanctuaries in China and Vietnam to care for bears it's rescued from bile farms.
Bears and many animals have proven their smarts a long time ago. They understand exactly what is going on and they despair just like we do. To deny this is to deny science.
This is so appalling and gut wrenching. It brought tears to my eyes.Can you imagine the pain these poor animals are going through? Think I'd kill my self too! The worst part of this story is that the bile is being used for ancient Chinese medicine, not a proven cure for anything!! This brutality has to stop, this is a disgrace and an outrage!!
Much like dairy in this country is consumed and advertised as "good for you" when it's not at all a necessity and is absolutely brutal just like all animal use in the west.
Please note that Louis Ng is from ACRES, a Singapore-based animal protection charity. ACRES, together with Love Wildlife Foundation (based in Thailand), are working on the Laos bear rescue centre project. To find out more please contact info@acres.org.sg or to donate please go to .... More
I hope all hose of you commenting in disgust at the treatment of these bears are also vegetarians or vegans. Animals raised in factory farms are not treated any better than these bears. Something about 'casting the first stone' comes to mind.
Hit the nail on the head 100%. Anyone thats thinks that their meat is raised in better conditions is delusional.
That is just untrue Victor, bears are wild animals are are not breed to be farmed, farmed animals are also feed well and allowed exercise, these bears are kept in tiny cages and many have infections and pus in the area of the catheter. Victor sounds like a chinese man, you should apologize for your culture instead of making other people feel bad you POS.
Where in the word did yu get the idea fram animals are fed well and treated well. They are kept in the same horrible conditions most of the time. What did you think it's all some pretty farm with cows grazing the land. Have you been to these places? You would never eat chicken again. Or any meat for that matter. I don't. It's a cruel inhumane life. They are crazy in Asian countries with their medical beliefs. And cruelty doesn't seem to be a problem for them at all.
This isn't even about the article now..
@Pat
Your confusing factory farming with farming.
Factory farms the animals are treatly worse then dirt because at the end of the day, management will still fill their quota even if a few die off during the process. Factory farms are indoor spaces where the public eye is banned.
Farmers treat their livestock pretty good, they need them alive and healthy so that they (the farmers) can continue to make their living. Before.... More
This isn't even about the article now..
Your confusing factory farming with farming.
Factory farms the animals are treatly worse then dirt because at the end of the day, management will still fill their quota even if a few die off during the process. Factory farms are indoor spaces where the public eye is banned.
Farmers treat their livestock pretty good, they need them alive and healthy so that they (the farmers) can continue to make their living. Before the.... More
I try to post.. and it posted it twice. I do not see a delete button so I will say Sorry about the double post.
@Pat,
Since I was raised on a farm and had many friends that were farmers/Cattlemen, I can say you are full of it. Our livestock was almost pampered, many were hand raised. While we were a smaller place (only about 250 head) I knew many places that had 5 and 6 hundred head.
The animals came first ALL of the time.
As far as slaughter houses, well that’s the job, kill, butcher, and pack meat. Where did you think steak came from... magic... gezz...
As far as bears, these are.... More
Gee Gary, it's wonderful that YOUR farm treated the animals well. You've obviously never seen one of the factory farms where the vast majority of meat comes from. Just watch "Death on a Factory Farm" or one of the dozens of other documentaries about industrial feedlots and slaughterhouses. After seeing what they do to these animals, you will probably never eat meat again. Of course, we probably won't see any new documentaries come out, since the U.S. government has passed a law declaring.... More
Apparently you don't know anything about pig farming or raising chickens. Sows are kept in either gestation crates or farrowing stalls their entire lives, and these cages are only as big as their bodies.
And if you think animals don't suffer in transport and at the slaughterhouse, then you are delusional. It doesn't matter if animals are wild or raised to be killed, they all suffer the same. They feel pain, fear.....why is that so hard to understand? Or is it because you don't.... More
Can we please stop doing terrible things in the name of profit. We are killing our own hearts for this nonsense.
Bear bile was once used in the U.S. for liver patients, it stimulates liver function. We no no longer need real bile since we now have synthetic bile in it's place. It's a shame Asian cultures are so trapped by tradition and.
Have you seen how the pigs are treated at the farms which supply pork to Walmart? Or how milk fed calves are kept for veal? Or what about chickens, etc? Check out the videos---their cages are similar to what we see here. The animals are immobilized! It's inhumane! AND it is in our good old USA.
Who cares if they do it intentionally? How about sticking to the fact that thousands of bears are tortured?
We need only look to our own country to find cruelty to match or exceed the cruelty done to these bears. No need to vilify another culture until we accept blame for the horrors our own culture holds dear.
http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2012/01/pig-investigation.html
Wrong. Villify any country who has enshrined cruelty of any sort. And include your own, wherever you come from. If we don't shine spotlights everywhere on the abuses, who will ever be motivated to end it. Canada is on the verge of being forced by world opinion, to end it's ghastly baby seal slaughter....proof that it works.
This is one of those things where you want to respect other cultures, but you also want to kill anyone involved in such a disgusting activity. Congratulations on preserving your culture at the expense of your dignity and humanity.
Inexcusable abominations to feed superstitions over healing properties. This is worse than their market for Rhino horns.
What products are created that justify this amount of suffering?
It's disgusting that people will treat ANY other living thing in this way. Martial law for the "bile farmers" and rehabilitation for these poor, poor animals. I wish things like this ceased to exist immediately. I do not use any cosmetic products, nor do I use "chinese medicines". I wish there was something included in the article that provided us with info on how to help stop this suffering.
A lot of animal cruelty is committed in the name of "Chinese medicine". WHEN will the Chinese government start to take this seriously? They have done some things to improve the situation in the past, why are they not concerned with this?
