IWMC.org - 2nd Symposium - Terrestrial Resources

Status of Asiatic Black Bear and Bear Farming in China Mr. Fan Zhiyong CITES Management Authority of China

Certainly one of the purposes of bear farms is to get commercial benefit from meeting the demand of TCM, but it must be realized that the existence of a captive bear population reduces the poaching pressure on the wild populations in China. TCM has occurred in China for thousands of years and is still an important health-care system in China now (Rosenthal, 1981). There is not only a great market for TCM in East Asia but also that in Europe and North America (Dharmananda, 1996). The demand for compositions in bear gall bladder will be continued with existence of these markets. Before the bear farms were developed, this demand exerted a great pressure on wild bears in some areas. For example, TCM Company of Heilongjiang Province purchased 19 kg wild bear gall bladders in 1984, which equals to 633 bears' life. Moreover the actual requirements for bear gall bladders are 50 kg each year in Heilongjiang Province, and to meet the requirement 1,666 individuals of bear would have to be killed every year, which are as much as 50% of the total wild bears in the province. The requirement had forced the Asiatic black bear to the edge of extinction in some areas of Heilongjiang Province (Sun et al., 1992). Now China needs 4,000 kg bear bile powder each year. It can be imagined how many bears would be killed if the demand were met and what it would mean for wild bears in China. The amount of bile powder that one bear can produce one year equals the output of 40 wild bear gall bladders, and it equals to protecting 400 wild bears if a captive bear could be used to collect bile for 10 years. The output of bear bile powder in China has absolutely satisfied the needs of China and there are quite an amount of surplus. Running bear farms can relieve wild bear populations from poaching. Poaching will become unprofitable and very dangerous since cheap bear products can be bought in the legal markets. Poachers do not like taking the risk of penalties and poaching bears has happened less. This can explain the reason why the bear abundance increases and ranges are restored in some provinces of China. In this respect, it can be said that bear farms have certain conservation value for wild bears although it is their side-product.

As bear farms provide enough products to markets, the price of the bile powder has decreased from as high as 20,000 RMB yuan (US$ 2,400)/kg in 1988 to 3,200 RMB yuan (US$ 380)/kg in 1998. Some small bear farms were withdrawn from competition and were closed without colossal profits, and large bear farms have enlarged the breeding populations and improved the captive conditions for further development. The change can be showed from Table 3. The number of bear farms decreases and bears in captive breeding increase. The Ministry of Forestry calls for that any bear farms with potentialities of captive breeding must set up breeding populations and establish studbook systems. Now the captive population in bear farms can maintain a self-sustained breeding population in China. The worry and prediction has not happened as some extreme conservationists thought that the production of the farm bear would stimulate the market demand.

The potential for breeding bear stocks are great enough and the captive breeding has to be controlled because of the surplus of the bile powder in China and the international ban of the bile products of Asiatic black bear. The bear farms have provided great support to protect wild bears in China and will support wild bear conservation in the world when they are accepted by the international community.

TCM has a great and irreplaceable value for health-care system of human beings and is also a very important component part of the cultural diversity in the world (Kaptchuk, 1983; Reid, 1993), which has long history and will develop further. Many regions in the world are rooted or affected by Chinese culture, including the TCM culture, and TCM is not only used in China but also in many other countries (Dharmananda, 1996). This fact must be faced. The components in bear gall bladders are used as compatible with TCM for thousands of years (Nowell et al., 1992; Mills and Servheen, 1991), and at present the function of bile powder can not be replaced by livestock gall bladders or synthetic products (Mills, 1995). The bear bile powders produced from bear farms provide an alternative resources to the bear gall-bladders from the wild for TCM. China has a great market demand for the components in bear gall bladder and the world has a large need in TCM. If it were not met with bear bile powders from bear farms, this demand would attract poachers to kill wild bears, which would really endanger the survival of bears in China, even those in other countries. Anyone, who discusses the bear conservation and bear farms in China, must face up to the facts mentioned above and consider them objectively, otherwise his conclusion must be extreme or one-sided.

IWMC World Conservation Trust