This WWF report highlights the illegal trade in bears and bear parts in Indochina and how vested interests are driving it out of control
This dreadful trade provides raw materials for (mainly) Chinese “traditional medicine” a euphemism for impotency treatment.
The trade which is internationally outlawed and proscribed by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wilde Flora and Fauna) involves mostly Asian Black Bears Ursus thibetanus although any old bear will do.
It goes like this: young bear cubs are taken from their mothers in countries such as Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia and are either killed and their body parts removed and rendered or are either farmed in the country of capture or trafficked through Vietnam and Laos to China. In China they are farmed for their bile, the key constituent in the bogus “treatment” for mainly Chinese men to improve their erections. Needless to say the market is almost limitless and the product extremely popular.
If you are outraged by this barbaric trade you can do something about it by joining Free the Bears, an international charity devoted to saving bears by providing rescue, shelter and where possible, reintroduction to the wild. Based in Australia Free the Bears operates worldwide and has made a significant impact on the preservation of wild bears and the stamping out of exploitation of bears such as dancing bears in India.
You can find them here http://www.freethebears.org.au/
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