What is bear bile?  What’s this all about? 

Bile is a liquid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder.  It is an acidic mixture of acids, cholesterol, water and electrolytes that aids in the digestion of food.  For at least three thousand years the bile of bears has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for a variety of reasons.  The gallbladder of a bear, usually an Asiatic black bear (moon bear), was the source of the bile, and to collect it the bear had to be killed.  In the early 1980’s the Chinese government encouraged the commercialization of bear farming, originally developed in Korea.  Bear farmers keep the bears alive and repeatedly remove their bile.  Before bear farming, bear bile was only available in small quantities.  Once commercial bear farming began in China, the supply of bile increased tremendously, fueling the international bear bile industry. (Find out why bear bile is obsolete.)

In 1993 Chinese bear bile farming was exposed by a British woman named Jill Robinson.  Since then, animal advocates all over the world have objected to the brutalities and cruelties of this practice while others have explained why the modern pharmaceutical industry has made bear farming unnecessary.  And while there is no bear farming in the United States, there is demand for bear bile and bear gall bladders.  This demand takes two forms.  First there is the illegal importation of Asian bear bile products.  (Illegal by definition because the Asiatic black bear is protected by international wildlife law.)  Beyond that is the trade in domestic bear bile.  In the United States, 16 states still allow the commerce in domestic bear products in some form.  This lack of uniform laws from state to state allows the domestic black market in bear gall bladders and bear bile to continue.  This may seem confusing, but the net result is this: Our black bears, grizzly bears and polar bears are poached for their gallbladders while a lack of uniform laws create loopholes in the prosecution and conviction those who profit from this commerce.

A bill, HR 5534,the Bear Protection Act of 2008, was introduced into the House of Representatives.  This bill had a specific purpose: to uniformly prohibit the interstate trade in bear parts and help law enforcement officers protect bear populations.  It did not prohibit hunting or tell states how to manage their bear populations.  This bill did not pass this year, but will likely be reintroduced in the future.

There are actually four subspecies of bears in North America: the black bear, the grizzly bear, the Alaskan brown bear and the polar bear.