China is the world’s biggest animal farming nation. Billions of farm animals are raised on the industrialized farms on the Chinese mainland. When I conducted a survey of China’s factory farms in 2005-2006, I saw a nationwide enthusiasm for Western farming practices such as gestation crates, battery cages, ear-clipping, beak-trimming, early weaning (for calves), castration, tail-docking (for pigs), and forced feeding (ducks and geese for weight gains and foie-gras production). While EU nations are phasing out such practices, China is massively employing them. The sheer number of farm animals in China suggests the world’s greatest number of farm animals are raised in welfare compromised farming conditions in China. Long-distance transport of farm animals from as far north as Inner Mongolia to as far south as the border city near Hong Kong suggests enormous suffering of livestock on that long and dreadful journey. Humane slaughter is a new concept in China. It is yet to become a requirement for the nation’s massive slaughter facilities across the country.Bear farming is arguably China’s most brutal operation. In China today, some 10,000 Asiatic black bears, China’s state-protected species, are caged for life for extracting bile from their gallbladders through an open wound cut in their stomachs. This brutal surgery procedure often causes irreparable damage to their internal organs.
