If the idea of consuming an animal's digestive fluid turns your stomach, just wait till you hear how it's harvested.
Bears, forced to live in small cages, are hooked up to catheters with no regard for their health and "milked" for their bile. This happens over and over, for the rest of their lives. Bears are tortured and killed for the traditional Chinese medicine market. Like other animals who have the misfortune of being deemed medicinal in Asia,
their parts are harvested and used to make anything from pills to powders and ointments. This occurs despite there being any scientific proof that bear derivatives have any medicinal value.
Currently, one of the main hotbeds of bear bile is the nation of Malaysia. Here, the fact that the bear trade is illegal hasn't seemed to deter shopkeepers or customers as, according to
TRAFFIC,
the availability of bear parts in shops has gone up by 20% over the last 7 years. Even though the bear trade is highly illegal in Malaysia, some of the greatest availability of products are smack in the heart of the nation's capital. According to a study, Kuala Lumpur's shops have the greatest array of bear products.
The trade moves freely right under officials' noses. There is no excuse for Malaysian officials to ignore the fact that this brutal trade is thriving unabated right under their noses. Animal rights organizations have been sounding the alarm for years and still, progress has been slow to come.
It is time we ask Malaysia once and for all to end bear bile trade within their borders. The cruelty needs to stop now. Sign the petition and ask for action.