Celebrities Protest China’s ‘Bear Farms’

by Sherry Morse

British MP Tony Banks joined celebrities in London, England, in early October as they called on the Chinese government to ban bear farming and to stop the illegal international trade in bear products. Celebrity attendees at the event included Bond girl Rachel Grant, Model Lisa B. and Anneka Svenska from Channel 5’s "Out There" program.

Other celebrities backing the campaign include Jeremy Irons, Graham Norton, Jenny Seagrove, Martin Shaw and Stephen Fry.

Also featured at the event was a giant collage bear made from some 13,000 signed postcards protesting bear farming. The postcards were collected from around the United Kingdom during the British leg of an international tour organized by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).

The tour had started with a teddy bear picnic held in Victoria Tower Gardens and then traveled to sixteen cities throughout the United Kingdom in September.

The public was asked to "PAWS for thought over China’s bear farms" and sign the postcards. The bear was handed to the Chinese embassy in London at the October 6th event. The event marked the end of the British tour, which will now move on to Australia and New Zealand.

There are still approximately 9,000 caged bears kept on one hundred and sixty-seven bear farms in China. International laws designed to protect endangered species do not seem to have an effect on the multi-million dollar illegal trade in bear parts and bear bile.

The bile is used as an ingredient in some traditional Chinese medicine and is viewed as a cure-all by many Chinese.

Bear farming causes life-long misery to the thousands of bears which have to endure the daily agony of having bile drained from open wounds.

Animal welfare groups have pointed out that now that the active ingredient in bear bile can be produced synthetically and a large number of herbal alternatives are available, the farming of bears to obtain the bile is clearly inexcusable.

"Increasing numbers of people from around the world are joining us in calling on the Chinese government to ban bear bile farming now," said Leah Garces, WSPA’s Head of Campaigns. "There is no excuse for this kind of cruelty."

© 2003 Animal News Center, Inc.