Fake bear gall bladders scam
ALMOST two-thirds of bear gall bladders being sold in Chinese medicine shops, for prices of up to $18,000 a tael, may be fake, a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study has found.
The finding comes as the Agriculture and Fisheries Department prepares to announce today restrictions on the trade in the North American Black Bear and other species and their products.
Lack of control on the black bear has enabled the market in bear products, particularly gall bladders, to flourish. But the WWF found most bear products tested were fake and at least some came from pigs.
Bear bile, from the gall bladder, is used in about 80 Chinese prescriptions and is recognised as containing a chemical that can help relieve fever and inflammation - something pigs do not have.
The WWF investigators visited 92 Chinese medicine shops and 81 were selling what was claimed to be bear bile in crystallised salt form cut from dried gall bladders.
The prices ranged from $156 a tael to $18,000. Fakes were found at both ends of the price range.
The highest price for genuine bile was $10,000 a tael and the average price was $6,243, while for fake bile the average price was $3,390. Samples were sent to a laboratory in the United States, which found that only 28 of the 81 samples were genuine.
David Melville, executive director of the WWF, said the fund was concerned about bears from a conservation aspect, but pointed out: ''Even if you are somebody interested in buying bear bile, it's quite likely you are not getting what you are paying for.'' The WWF's concern centres on a loophole in the law which does not control trade in North American Black Bears while the products of all other bears are controlled or banned.
The genuine bear gall bladders found in Hong Kong are believed to have come from China where the Asiatic Black Bear and Brown Bear are endangered.
