Bear farming began in China in 1984. There were 601 bear farms with 6,632 captive bears (6,312 Asiatic black bears) in 1992, 481 with 7,642 (7,370) in 1996 and 247 with 7,002 (6,764) in 1998. Most of the farmed bears and bears bred in captivity are black bears, Selenarctos thibetanus. The numbers of black bears, bred and surviving in captivity, were 103 individuals (1.63% of the black bears in captivity) in 1992, 852 (11.56%) in 1996 and 2,957 (43.72%) in 1998, including F1, F2 and a few F3. The survival rate at average is as high as 81.64%. 1,124 cubs were born in captivity in 1998. The general trend of development of bear farming in China is that the number of bear farms decreases and the number of bears from captive breeding increases rapidly, which is closely related to management policy to control bear farms - no bears were allowed to be caught from the wild for farming after 1990 and no new bear farms have been approved since 1993, and each bear farm must have breeding stocks and support themselves.

The number of bear farms with more than 200 individuals is 10, more than 100 is 16, more than 50 is 27 and more than 30 is 39. Now some of the bear farms can support themselves with self-sustained captive-bred stocks. Main product of bear farms is bile powder and some are Chinese patent medicines. The output of dry bile powder is about 7 ton/year from 1996 to 1998 and there is a great quantity of surplus bile powder in China. A few large bear farms qualify the criteria for registration of operations breeding Appendix-I animal species for commercial purposes. The bear farms have provided great support to protect wild bears in China and we wish to support wild bear conservation in the world.

Bears have been focused by international communities for long time, especially by western countries, but the status of bears is still unclear yet, especially in China before 1995. In mountainous regions of China, bears, especially the Asiatic black bear (Selenarctos thibetanus), are considered as pests. In addition, the components in bear gall bladder are used as compatible with the Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) for thousands of years. Due to the combination of excessive human-caused mortality and habitat loss, the Asiatic black bear and the brown bear (Ursus arctos) were listed as 2^nd class species and the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) as 1^st class species under special State protection in the Wildlife Protection Law of China in 1989, although a strong objection was raised then. In order to respond to the international conservation of bears, especially to CITES, CNMA organized an investigation on the abundance of wild bears in their range and in bears farms from 1991 to 1994, which covered 552 counties in 18 provincial administrative regions in China. During July of 1996, the Ministry of Forestry and CITES Management Authority of China held a Working Forum on Management of Bear Farms in Sichuan and some surveys were done by the author. The bear farms were surveyed again by the author in 1998. Above investigations gave the following results.

1) The status of wild bears: In combining the information from some references with the investigation, the following may give a brief picture of wild bears of China.